This summer course, organised by the Médiathèques d’Orléans in partnership with the Centre d’Études supérieures de la Renaissance de Tours and the Equipex Biblissima, was held in Orléans from Tuesday 7th to Saturday 11th July 2015.
The digitisation of the Catalogues Régionaux des Incunables (Regional Catalogues of Incunabula) of the Central-West region of France is undertaken by the CESR, at the initiative and with the support of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Communication, and as part of the Equipex Biblissima (partner project CRIICO, 2015).
Published before 1501, the first printed editions, known as incunabula, first captured the interest of booklovers, researchers, and librarians three centuries ago. Today, knowledge of the output from these first fifty years is more widespread as a result of national and international bibliographical research. An inventory of some 30,000 incunabular books has been compiled, representing around fifty million copies that circulated over a period of roughly fifty years. This summer school aims to increase the participants' awareness of the issues surrounding the description, cataloguing and digitisation of incunabula. It is intended to highlight the interest of a scientific approach, for example by focussing on the conditions in which they were produced and on their content, as well as by reconstructing their journey to the present day through the study of their bindings and marks of origin.