ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Incunabula Short Title Catalogue

Okay kiddo, so you know how books are really important, right? Well, a loooong time ago, before we had fancy machines to print lots of copies of books all at once, people had to write them out by hand, which was really slow and hard. But then, they came up with something called a printing press, which let them print lots of copies all at once!

Now, when the printing press was first invented, people made books that were called incunabula. These are really old books that were printed before the year 1501. And because they were made so long ago, they're really important for people who study history or literature or just like old things.

But there's a problem: there are LOTS of incunabula books out there, and they all have different names and authors and stuff. So it's hard for people who want to study them to figure out which books exist and where they are. That's where the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue comes in!

The Incunabula Short Title Catalogue is like a big list of all the incunabula books that have ever been found. It has information like the title of the book, who printed it, where and when it was printed, and what it's about. And this list is really helpful because it lets people who are studying incunabula know which books are out there and where they can find them.

So, in short, the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue is like a really big and important list of really old books that people can use to study history and literature!