Printers' and publishers' devices flourished from the 15th century through the end of the 17th century. They could be simple symbols, allegorical vignettes, rebuses, or symbolic references to the printer's name or self-perception. They were an early trademark and as such, susceptible to forgery and appropriation. There are many good printed reference sources for printers' devices, but there is not a unified source. The printed reference books are also unfortunately difficult to locate even in facsimile reproduction.

MELCHOIRRE SESSA PRINTER'S DEVICE 1510

71 x 54 mm. © University of Florida

For over a year, Neus Verger of the Àrea de Reserva of the Biblioteca Universitat de Barcelona has been developing and maintaining an online database of printers’ devices, the Marques d'impressors (http://lluna.bib.ub.es/impressors/impr.htm). In the spring of last year, the Rare Books section of the Dept. of Special & Area Studies Collections began scanning printers’ devices and developed a form to both display the images and provide bibliographic information concerning them (http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/rarebook/devices/device.htm). It was originally set up as two basic files: one arranged by date and the other by printer/publishers. In the fall, Hilton Soto of the Systems Dept. wrote a database program that made the site fully searchable. Throughout this time, the University of Florida and the Universitat de Barcelona have been discussing cooperating in the development of the databases. The two databases overlap, but do not duplicate one another. The Barcelona database is linked directly their online catalog and allows a printer to be searched from the database. One can search through the list of printers, which also includes nonstandard versions of their names, and go the records of devices associated with that printer. The Florida database gives information about the size of the device, bibliographic information about the book in which it is located, and a citation from a reference source to the device when available, and the bibliographic record in the online catalog is linked to the database with a MARC 856 field. By cooperating, both institutions can avail themselves of each other's scanned images and bibliographic citations. On February 2, the George A. Smathers Libraries and the Biblioteca Universitat de Barcelona formally agreed to share the information and digitized images in their online printers' devices databases, approved by Carolyn Henderson Allen, Deputy Director and Lluïsa Nuñez, Adjunct a Direcció (TI). Neus Verger has since provided an English language version of the search page; the descriptions of the devices are in Catalan.