Book Owners Online is authored by the book historian David Pearson, published by the UCL Centre for Editing Lives and Letters (CELL), and funded by the Bibliographical Society.
BOO began life as a simple listing of 17th-century book owners posted online as work in progress on the website of the Bibliographical Society, and on the Bibsite of the Bibliographical Society of America. That list was always envisaged as a precursor to a fuller directory.
The list was a foundation for Pearson’s 2018 Lyell Lectures, published as Book ownership in Stuart England (Oxford University Press, 2021), where a version of it is included as the Appendix. As the purposes of the original online simple list are now superseded by BOO and by this book, the list on the Bibliographical Society site has been expanded to cover both the 16th and 17th centuries: [url to be supplied]
BOO has been developed to its current state through funding from the Bibliographical Society and the Lyell Electors at Oxford University, working in partnership with the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at University College London, to enable the creation of a database platform using Semantic Mediawiki. It aims to become established as a freely available online reference source, supported by the Bibliographical Society, and has deliberately been planned with the potential to expand both chronologically and geographically, and to enable the widening of the team of people who can directly input and edit data.
It will never be perfect, and it will never be complete. Many entries have possibilities for expansion or refinement, based on more research with surviving books or documentary sources, and the addition of references. Databases like this are dynamic, easily edited, intended to be continuously revised. It is hoped that the existence of BOO will prompt custodians to identify books with information or images which could usefully enhance it, and submit material which will improve it.
The site runs on Semantic MediaWiki (details).
