Digitised Quarterly Lists and Metadata

The files in this dataset are derived from the British Library’s collection of bound volume Quarterly Lists: printed catalogue records of Indian books published quarterly and by province of British India between 1867 and 1947. The dataset comprises full-text searchable PDFs of 215 volumes as well as the associated metadata for each volume and represents a rich source for researchers interested in the publishing industry and book history in India.

The catalogues are predominantly in English language with some Bengali and mostly arranged in table format, capturing descriptive metadata about the books, including the name and addresses of printers and publishers, the number of copies printed and often the price, as well as much more. Two Centuries of Indian Print also hopes to make these lists available as ALTO XML files in the near future and will be digitising rare Bengali books dating from 1713-1914 in 2017, the datasets of which will also be made available through this website.