Western Europe

The Papers of the Roman Catholic Modernist movement held in St Andrews University Library are of central importance to the study of Roman Catholic theology in the late nineteenth and early 20th century. Amongst the group, the papers of Wilfrid Ward (1856-1916) are of great importance. Prior to this project, they were the only element of the broader collection which did not benefit from internet-deliverable detailed listing.

The general aims of the Projet Volterra (named, in association with the École Française de Rome, in honour of Edoardo Volterra (1904-1987), the distinguished scholar of Roman Law) are to promote the study of Roman legislation in its full social, political and legal context, and its continuing tradition. The area of Roman imperial legal pronouncements was identified as one in which current scholarship was less than adequately served in terms of Regesten, repertoria and bibliographical aids.

The St Andrews French Book Project intends to create an analytical bibliography of all books published in the French language before 1601. It is the first ever global survey of early French books, based on an exhaustive investigation of over 1550 libraries worldwide. It is also the first major national bibliographical project to have been designed and completed entirely in the electronic age.

Research on 19th-century music is hampered by insufficient bibliographical control of printed music. However, the Leipzig publisher Hofmeister published monthly or bi-monthly reports (Monatsberichte) on music publications that permit datings of large numbers of prints after 1829 when the series began: these constitute the single largest inventory of music prints produced in the 19th century. The Monatsberichte are limited by the form in which they were set out and by the fact that no single run of the series exists anywhere in the world.