As Rare Books Cataloguer at Gonville & Caius College, James Luff sometimes considers that he is living in the 18th century. “You feel immersed in it,” says James, who has worked in the Lower Library for nearly two-and-a-half years, cataloguing the early printed books.

Some mistake work like James’ for digitising; in fact, he is entering the bibliographic details of each book, including the provenance and other copy-specific details of each item, enabling this large and important part of the College’s historic collections to be visible to worldwide scholarship via the online catalogue for the first time. These books date from an era where absolutely everything was handmade, and thus there is great scope for variations between copies. James has occasions to pause to think about “the individual bits of type, the woodcuts, the engravings, the bindings – the calf skin, the gold tooling on the spine – the way the pages have been made, folded, cut and then bound together…”

He says: “They’re these amazing, hand produced objects. As such, every single one is individual. 

“Even the details of the exact printing can vary slightly. Considering how everything was placed by hand, in reverse, it’s amazing how few mistakes there are. There is such skilled craftsmanship that has gone into literally every aspect of their production.

“Of course,  their contents are still of academic interest, but they’ve also got this whole other layer of interest, which is bibliographic, as material history. The uniqueness of the collection, the uniqueness of the object, the provenance of it, is also often very important.”

James was appointed as a specialist for project work, updating the College Library’s Victorian handwritten list of the books for the digital age. With funding secured, James’ role was to accelerate the cataloguing process, and get a collection of around 2,000 volumes online and visible externally.

College Librarian Mark Statham says: “For the past 20 years we have been working hard to create an online catalogue record for every early-printed book (i.e. items with an imprint no later than 1800) held in the Library. We give a full account, noting provenance, binding, collation and any idiosyncrasies. It has been a labour of love.

“Once we reach our target of 1800 it will the first time ever that a catalogue of all the early-printed books in this Library would be directly available to readers. Hitherto we have had to rely on hand-written guard-books within the Lower Library. 

“This new definitive inventory includes some things that we didn’t even know we possessed, that were not featured in the guard-books but have come to light during our work. This is important, because scholars from around the world visit us to consult our significant rare and early-printed materials.”

Mark estimates James’ role has expedited a process by about five years. And there is plenty of scope for further work.

James’ role is going through each one very systematically and creating a detailed description of it according to international standards for rare books cataloguing.

“When people sign their books they often just scribble their initials or name. Sometimes I’m wishing they took a little more care when I’m sitting here 200 or 300 years later trying to decipher exactly who this might have been,” James adds.

“It’s long-term, bigger picture work which makes visible not only the basic contents, but also the biographic and bibliographic history the College’s amazing collection. Occasionally you get star books come through that you recognise. The first edition of Newton’s work in English, for example, pictured. But, for me, it’s more a general sense of literally coming into contact with the 18th Century that I particularly enjoy. You feel immersed in it.”

James, whose own academic subjects were music and philosophy, has extended his time-travel into his other work – making musical instruments. He makes lutes, and brought in a copy he made of an instrument built in Germany in 1720.

He appreciates the tactile history which visitors to the Library often wish to share.

“They may well have seen the facsimile online, they likely know the book’s contents, but often their scholarly interest will extend to what exactly makes a certain copy unique,” he says. “They may want to examine some small variation in the printing, provenance or binding, and a well-furnished catalogue entry not only shows that we have a copy of a particular book, but can also highlight these unique copy-specific variations for potential visitors.”