Anyone interested in book history will be glad to know that the ESTC (English Short Title Catalogue) is available again. The catalogue hosted by the British Library had been unavailable since the cyber attack in October 2023. The ESTC is now being hosted by CERL (Consortium of European Research Libraries).
The ESTC is a bibliography of printed materials (books, serials, pamphlets) produced in English-speaking countries between 1473 and 1800.
It is also a union catalogue that lists copies of those items held by libraries and other owners around the world, as well as links to digital reproductions where available.
ESTC currently contains about 500,000 records and more than 3 million holdings. It is co-managed by the British Library and ESTC North America (ESTC/NA).
The CERL hosted version of ESTC is still in beta. There will be changes to the database and search interface over the coming months.
You can access the ESTC from the A-Z of Online Resources.