Holding page: British Book Trade Index

The Bodleian Libraries have taken The British Book Trade index resource offline, owing to a change in guidance within the University relating to cyber security.

The British Book Trade Index resource has therefore been taken offline as a precaution, in the light of the new guidance, while we develop new approaches to being able to support and deliver it.

We acknowledge how disruptive this has been to the many scholars and communities who use this resource. Alternative ways to access The British Book Trade Index resource are below, while we determine routes and funding to take the resource forward.

More on the background here: Bodleian Service Updates

An export of the BBTI database and John Feather’s Bibliography is available via the Oxford University Research Archive.

The above dataset has been redeveloped as a stand-alone site by Prof. Janelle Jansted and Martin Holmes at University of Victoria.

The dataset has also been redeveloped as a stand-alone site by Prof. Allison Muri of the University of Saskatchewan.

Users may also wish to consult the Dicey & Marshall catalogue.

Please contact digitalsupport@bodleian.ox.ac.uk with any questions.

About the Project

The BRITISH BOOK TRADE INDEX (BBTI) aims to include brief biographical and trade details of all those who worked in the English and Welsh book trades up to 1851. (The National Library of Scotland maintains a separate Scottish Book Trade Index.)

BBTI includes not only printers, publishers and booksellers but also other related trades, such as stationers, papermakers, engravers, auctioneers, ink-makers and sellers of medicines, so that the book trade can be studied in the context of allied trades. BBTI is, however, an index to other sources of information, and not a biographical dictionary.

BBTI was founded in 1983 by Professor Peter Isaac at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne with financial assistance from the Sir James Knott Charitable Trust, the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust. Professor Isaac died in June 2002, shortly after seeing the project established at the University of Birmingham, where the then Arts and Humanities Research Board’s Research Enhancement Scheme funded a project to make BBTI freely accessible online. The funded project, directed by Maureen Bell with the assistance of John Hinks (d. 2024) as Research Fellow, ended in 2005. BBTI was moved to Oxford in 2015 to join other resources for book trade history hosted by the Centre for the Study of the Book. This third phase in BBTI’s development was made possible by the Printing Historical Society and Print Networks.

In 2024, the website which hosted the BBTI database was withdrawn due to security concerns. An export of the BBTI database is now hosted in the Oxford University Research Archive. Options for redeveloping BBTI in a fourth phase are being investigated.

Date when website was withdrawn:
29 November 2024