Our Mission

This platform promotes ongoing work in women's book history by providing a hub where scholarship and resources on women's writing and labor is made visible. We believe that collecting data, making this work “count,” is a feminist act that preserves our past and shapes our future. Women’s book history is continually evolving and restructuring, and we are committed to actively reflecting this dynamic field through our interrelated projects.

The Bibliography

The bibliography is a database of secondary sources on women's writing and labor. Primarily our sources are in English, and non-English sources have a rough translation included. The database is not meant to be an exhaustive list of all book history sources that refer to women or discuss women, but instead a thorough snapshot of studies that take women as their primary subjects.

There are several factors that we would like to be transparent about. First, our database has an Anglo-American bias. We are slowly complicating this with more global sources (and are happy to take any suggestions for more). Secondly, we are literary scholars who focus on the broad Early Modern period, and the database is shaped by these interests and our training in these fields. Third, we define “women” as a constructionist, not an essentialist, identity. We actively index scholarship on multiple definitions of “women” and include non-binary subjects.

Our project is meant to be descriptive of the field, not proscriptive. We define book history in the same terms as Leslie Howsam in Old Books and New Histories: the intersection of history, literary studies, and bibliography. As such, our list clusters around the overlaps between these subfields that we list in the "Fields" option on the database. Since book historians have significant interest with digital methodologies, we specifically index sources working on gender in digital humanities. As a project of intersectional feminism, we also index sources by other relevant interests: critical race studies, postcolonialism, and LGBT+ and sexuality.

This list is a growing organism, and we are always open to adding new sources. Please contact us with suggestions for new additions. 

The Blog

We began Sammelband in early 2018 with the intention of exploring how to do “book history on a budget” for those without access to substantial archives or who are early in their careers. Our emphasis is on practical methods and open-access materials. We post blogs on the first of every month, which are usually written by one of the editors. We happily welcome guest blog posts, especially from early career scholars and those who are exploring innovative methodologies. Please contact cait.coker[at]gmail[.]com with potential ideas.

The Editors

Cait Coker is Associate Professor and Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She frequently publishes on the history of women in the book trades on and popular culture. Most recently, she co-edited the collection DH+BH: Critical Engagement with Cultural Heritage at the Intersections of Digital Humanities and Book History with Spencer D.C. Keralis in 2025.

Kate Ozment is Team Leader for Digital Scholarship in the Kelvin Smith Library at Case Western Reserve University. Her research focuses on digital humanities and book history in the Anglophone world. She is the author of “Rationale for Feminist Bibliography” in Textual Cultures and The Hroswitha Club at the Impact of Women Book Collectors, which was published in 2023.

Bryan Tarpley is Associate Research Scientist at the Center of Digital Humanities Research at Texas A&M University where he develops infrastructure and tools to support digital scholarship, and is the Associate Director of Technology for the Advanced Research Consortium. He holds a PhD in English and studies affect theory in the context of contemporary literature.

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful for the startup and maintenance funding for this project, which was provided by the Elizabeth Greenwade Qualls '89 Endowed Fellowship through the English Department at Texas A&M University. Our database was built through a generous grant from the Initiative for Digital Humanities, Media, and Culture. Our biggest thanks go to Laura Mandell, Bryan Tarpley, and the IDHMC staff. 

Conceptually, the bibliography would not be possible without the pioneering work of Maureen Bell, Michelle Levy, Lisa Maruca, Paula McDowell, and Helen Smith. In particular, we want to thank Margaret J.M. Ezell for her mentorship and unfailing support and encouragement on this and other projects. 

Lastly, we would like to thank our contributors, who have helped us grow the bibliography substantially.