The main body of this contribution to The Radboud Repository is a register of 1198 items, corresponding with the summaries which Rabus, Van der Slaart and Séwel published in the Rotterdam periodical. The following explanation may serve as an introduction for the convenience of the user. The register is an alphabetical catalogue by author, so called because the alphabetical arrangement corresponds with the first letter of the family names of the authors of the summarised works. At the time there were various sorts of catalogues, like today. Besides catalogues by author there were registers by title, or catalogues according to authors’ names as well as titles. Another option is alphabetical arrangement according to subject or theme, with or without regard to a specific field of learning like law. There are further options.

The age of the rising Enlightenment knew an increasing demand for arranging existing knowledge as well as making knowledge accessible. This led to introduction of sizeable reference works like those of Moreri, Bayle and, in Dutch, of D. van Hoogstraten and J.L. Schuur. An activity aimed at disclosing periodicals and organising libraries was related to this. In turn it induced the forming of theory. So in 1669 Johannes Lomeier published his De bibliothecis liber Singularis, repeatedly reprinted. The Histoire des Ouvrages des Sçavans of March 1698 brought as a piece of news the message that the Dane Rottgard had developed a method of organising libraries ‘selon des matières’, i.e.: by size and format as well as by subject. In 1713 Idée générale des études […] appeared, written by Chevigny (Hénri-Philippe de Limiers). In this book he payed attention to a plan for the proper organisation of a library. At the time many works of that kind appeared. Regarding making periodicals accessible it must be stated that at this stage we are talking about two different activities, the first relating to the measures an editor took to make it easier for readers to use a current periodical, the other making the issues of a discontinued periodical suitable as reference work. Important contemporary literature about the first sort of measures doesn’t exist, apart from indications in the periodicals themselves. That goes too for the other, except for the assurance, often and sometimes extensively repeated, that former periodicals have changed into huge libraries.

Rabus’s Boekzaal for the first half year 1694 may serve as an example of the first category of measures. This arrangement applies until the end of the Rotterdam periodical in 1704, but not without deviations. The issue January-February 1694 ends with an ‘Aanwijzer Der voornaamste Stoffen’ (Indicator of the most important subjects). This indicator follows the sequence of the articles in the issue concerned and mentions per article the author and the beginning of the title, translated -except for works in Dutch of course- by Rabus. Then follows a point by point enumeration of the most important subjects of this summarised book. The sections Boekennieuws (Book News) are handled like this too, all provided with page numbers. The issues March-April and May-June 1694 offer the same service to the reader. The latter issue contains at the end a ‘Register van de Boekzaal Voor de zes maanden January, February, Maart, April, Mey en Juny 1694’. This register is arranged alphabetically and mentions -mixed up- author names, short titles and subjects dealt with. The items in this register refer to the pages concerned in the three parts, half a year of Boekzaal, paged continuously.

Registers for an -often long- series of issues of a periodical, which could function as the catalogue of a library, were a favourite tool in the age of Enlightenment. This matter deserves more investigation. Such registers and catalogues could be sizeable and their imminent publication was important news for scholars and lettered people. For instance Nouvelles de la Républiques des Lettres mentioned in 1716 that an intelligent man with a great power of discernment, an excellent ‘gout’, had developed a plan to make an index, in which all subjects ever dealt with in this periodical, could be traced. A thematic register indeed. This index would have covered a whole issue of the periodical. In relation to this it should be pointed out that, when his periodical discontinued, Pieter van der Slaart published such a register at the end of the issue November-December 1701 with the title Aanwyzer Van alle de Boeken In de Boekzaal van Europe Gemeld (unnumbered pages after page 482). This register is alphabetical by author. A short fragment of the matching titles or a short indication of the content of the publications concerned is given after the authors’ names, plus a reference to issue and page number of the periodical where one can find the item. An instruction how to use this tool precedes the index. How titles or contents of the works are noted sometimes lacks clarity and this register proves to be lacunary here and there. Another important undertaking was the Register der Boeken, uitgetrokken in de Boekzaalen, of tweemaandelyke Uittreksels, voorheenen gesticht in de jaaren 1692-1708, van de Heeren P. Rabus, W. Sewel en J. van Gaveren (in short: register of excerpts in the mentioned periodicals), started in 1716 by J. Le Long and published in 1722 in Amsterdam by Gerard onder de Linden. This register includes the four years in which the originally Rotterdam periodical was continued in Amsterdam. Several more catalogues like this appeared later in the century in the Republic.

There are various acceptable ways of describing historical book titles, each with advantages and disavantages. One may choose a concise manner of description that only states the most distinguishing components of the title: the perfect short title method. For various reasons however the presentation of the Rotterdam periodical given here chooses an opposite method of working: a reproduction as detailed as possible of the title pages of the publications which Rabus, Van der Slaart and Séwel summarised. Title pages of that time can be used as short contents of the work they precede. They also introduce the work, sometimes trumpeting its praise, certainly when a colleague author, contemporary or from the past, was firmly reviewed for his different opinion. Thus they rank a work in the scholarly argument of that time beforehand. Often those titles are long and they lose their character by strong reduction, a disadvantage to the book that they promote with measured statements. For the new editions of several works, especially theological publications, a short insert in the title may moreover indicate an important content change in the work concerned. Long book titles from this period raise easy accessability of many works. The title page of L’origine de l’imprimerie de Paris […] by André Chevillier for instance gives a separate table of contents for each of the four parts of this work. A user, who searches for specific information, knows immediately where he can find it. Book titles were of importance to the reviews; a reason to keep them intact now. “’k Zie gaarne, dat een boek zijn opschrift voldoet”, Rabus wrote. That long book titles were not unusual at the time is magnificently indicated by the fact that Rabus hated them. “Als de drukkers den korten inhoud van ’t boek op het titel-blad laten zetten, schijnen ze my de moeite van ’t uittreksel maken te willen ontnemen” (in short: when printers give the short contents on the title page, they seem to make my labour superfluous). This remark was triggered by the long title of Schoole der Jooden […] by Buxtorf.

The intention of The Radboud Repository authors’ catalogue of the Rotterdam periodical is to draw worldwide researchers’ attention to the existence of summaries/articles in Dutch on authors from the years 1692-1704 they are investigating, though with the restriction that only articles on actually printed publications are admitted in this register. A comprehensive description of the periodical is not given. For instance a ‘Hoofddeel’ (article, chapter), consisting only of a birthday poem, not printed subsequently, does not occur in the catalogue, but a ‘Hoofddeel’ that -besides a few explaining words- consists only of the title of a printed work, does. Preliminary items of the periodical, like pages with a dedication, a preface with the title “De schrijver tot de lezer” (the author to the reader) and the like, are left out completely. Also not listed are ‘Book News’ and other information on learning and arts, presented in the last ‘Hoofddeel’ of the issue. New books mentioned in that last section were provided with an asterisk when they were to be summarised soon, but they are listed in this catalogue only when that summary is produced and printed in the periodical. The rest, however interesting, remains unregistered in the catalogue, as it is too heterogeneous for admittance and includes information about books that probably never did appear at all. Rabus called himself a producer of summaries of books, thereby stating what was his main intention with his periodical. This must be sufficient legitimation for the restrictions when compiling this catalogue.

In general the titles in the catalogue are not quoted directly from the periodical. In Rabus’s and his successors’ days people were less accurate in reproducing a title than in later times, or in other words: one didn’t value precision foremost. It’s a fact that even titles of Rabus’s own work were not quoted correctly in the periodical. Therefore the correct titles of the books summarised in the periodical have been traced in the catalogues of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, of the British Library in London, and further in the Deutscher Gesamtkatalog and the very sizeable National Union Catalogue. The reliability and wide scope of these catalogues make up for the disavantage of differences in title description. Autopsy of works in the Royal Libraries in The Hague and Brussels and in a lot of other scholarly libraries in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, undertaken from 1980, forms an other guarantee for a correct quotation of the titles of books that the Rotterdam writers had on their tables. In occuring cases also monographs about authors reviewed in the Rotterdam periodical and about the practice of learning at the time have been consulted. Only when all those ways led nowhere it was necessary to put up with a critical reproduction of the relevant title in the periodical (obvious mistakes have been rectified). The catalogue emphatically has no pretensions in the domain of book science, but only serves the purpose mentioned above.

The presentation of the titles in this catalogue is built up as follows:

Title:

see above. Further:
Greek words in a title are admitted; but for practical reasons no Hebrew or Coptic words. The latter categories are relatively small. Other parts of the title always clarify the subject matter of the book. And the Hebrew in the Boekzaal is full of mistakes, another reason to omit Hebrew in titles. Rabus’s friend Theodorus Jansson van Almeloveen blamed him for those careless mistakes.
 
Pseudonyms: the pseudonym is given in square brackets, followed by the real name of the author. E.g.
[Gavin, Antonie] ps. Gabriel d’ Émiliane
 
Anonymous works: they are catalogued according to the first title word, followed by a reference to the unnamed author in square brackets. E.g.
L’Art de vivre heureux: see [Ameline, Claude]
 
When the author of an anonymous work couldn’t be traced the beginning of the title concerned is printed in capitals. E.g.
KORT BEGRIP van de twee boeken der Betooverde Weereld ...

Author:

see above for pseudonyms and anonymous works.
 
When there are several authors, they are listed on a new line each, numbered from the second author. E.g.
Aalstius, Johannes
author 2:
Steenwinkel, Paulus
 
In case a main publisher/text producer was involved he is mentioned after the author. E.g.
DIOGENES LAERTIUS / MEIBOM, Marcus
 
When a section of a work forms an independent part, written by another author or his editor, the other author is listed in the alphabetical catalogue. E.g.
in DIOGENES LAERTIUS / MEIBOM, Marcus:
Ménage, Gilles
 
Titles of works that are summarised by the publisher Pieter van der Slaart or one of his anonymous collaborators are marked with an S.

Place of publication:

In case of a fictitious place of publication the correct place name -if known- follows in square brackets. E.g.
Hugo Franciscus van Heussen, Hand en Huysboek ..., Tot Antwerpen [Leiden]
 
Titles without place name are marked with the initials n.p.

Publisher / printer:

A fictitious publisher’s name is put in brackets. E.g.
A Cologne (Chez Pierre Marteau)
 
Sometimes an explanatory note is added in square brackets. E.g.
A Paris (Chez La Veuve Mabre Cramoisi) 1695 [in fact a Dutch pirate edition]
 
Often publisher as well as printer are mentioned on the title page. E.g.
August Buchner, Poemata selectiora ..., Apud M.G. Hübnerum, Typis J.G. Richteri

Publication year:

Works are often postdated, probably to lend a helping hand to the actuality of the review in the periodicals. Antedating occurs too.
 
The year of the traced edition -in many cases the only edition- is always mentioned in square brackets following the questionable year. E.g.
Casperus Commelin, Beschrijvinge Van Amsterdam ..., 1694 [1693]
 
When a year is put in brackets it indicates that the book concerned probably appeared in that year. E.g.
Mertin Clifford, Traité de la raison humaine [1699]
 
Titles without publication year are marked with the initials n.d.

Size and format:

Size: apart from rare exceptions the number of preliminary pages of a book, unnumbered or numbered in Roman numerals, aren’t counted. Only the number of Arabic numbered pages of a work are counted and than only the last page numberis mentioned. E.g.
5 – 368 pp. is mentioned as 368 pp.
 
Format: the traditional indications of the bibliographical format of a work are used. E.g.
in -4°, in -8°

Issue:

The place of a summary in the periodical is noted as follows: months of the issue / year of the issue / serial number of the article concerned / the pages covered by the article. E.g.
Nov.-Dec. 1693, 9, pp. 477-482

Titles of works that are summarised by the publisher Pieter van der Slaart or one of his anonymous collaborators are marked with an S.

Category:

The following letters are used for indicating the kind of work: T, J, G, H, P, S&M, L, PD, D. They each cover a field of learning or domain of arts, nine categories in all. For comparison: the general index on the Acta Eruditorum from 1693 catalogued this periodical in different ways, for instance according to six theme fields, e.g. law or the category combined fields of physics, medical science and mathematics. The nine fields that are used to disclose the contents of the Rotterdam periodical all have a general character. The letter J for instance indicates that it is a juridical work in a general sense. The survey below explains that canonical as well as civil law are classed in this field, and further Roman law, national law, jurisprudence, natural law, civic law and more. This survey provides all used letters with detailed explanation. It often occurs that a summarised work may be or ought to be classed in more than one field. In that case two letters are added to the title of the work, e.g. P, L. In only a few cases three initials are used. The letter D means that no well-considered choice could be made. It has to be admitted that the way of classification followed here is somehow an anachronism. Eighteenth-century people set about it in their own way, like F. Furet described in his article ‘La ‘librairie’ du royaume de France au 18e siècle’ (1965). L. van Lieshout has successfully used an adaptation of this method to make two francophone periodicals from the Republic accessible. Furet however based his article mainly on French library catalogues from the eighteenth century and a periodical is something else than a library. For the Rotterdam periodical a method has therefore been chosen which possibly is less sophisticated, but hopefully in our time more public-friendly.

STCN:

A link to the Short Title Catalogue Nederland is added.

Google Books:

This means that a work is accessible via Google Books.

KB Catalogue:

A link to the catalogue of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library) in The Hague is added.