Presentation

The University of Barcelona's Rare Book and Manuscript CRAI Library boasts one of the largest and most significant collections of rare books in Spain. It holds around 70.000 editions and almost twice the number of individual copies dating from the 15th century up to 1820, broadly showcasing the period of manual printing in Europe, particularly in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands.

The scope of the collection is such that it contains a wealth of diverse printers' devices. These illustrative elements, also called printers’ marks, are usually found on the title page or the colophon and serve to identify the printing house where the book was produced or the editor or bookseller who funded its production.

To enable the public to view this impressive collection of one of the most attractive features of rare books, in October 1998 the CRAI launched what was a pioneering database in its field: Printers' devices.

After more than twenty years of storage on an in-house platform at the University of Barcelona, in 2021 the records were migrated to a new database in the cloud-based document management system Coeli Platform, which offers more efficient and flexible searching, high online visibility and an eye-catching format that places the images front and center.

The database is updated each week and is continually growing as new documents are catalogued. Each record is structured in two separate sections.

The first section can be found at the bottom of each record, in the area with a burgundy background, and includes metadata and links related to the printer, bookseller or editor. To the right of the printer’s name there is a link to the UB library catalog, which links to catalogue records of books associated with the printer. Below the name, there are thumbnails of marks associated with the printer. In cases of a printer with more than one device, if the images represent different ideas or there are differences in the motto, they are presented independently and appear as different devices. However, in case of devices portraying the same iconographic representation, they are gathered in a single thumbnail with the number of included variants. The record also includes information on the years and locations in which the subject was active, related entries and alternative names, and the sources of information used, a full list of which can be found on the Sources/Bibliography page.

The second section, at the top of the register, contains the image and related metadata of each printer’s device, including a description, the motto and corresponding iconographic terms. The variant devices of an iconographic representation can be seen by clicking on the arrows on the right and left sides of the image.

The records can be searched by device, printer and location and refined chronologically or by using other search features.

The database can be searched in Catalan, Spanish and English. Most of the content is translated, although some fields, such as the description of the device, are only displayed in Catalan.