This new work builds upon the principles established by the St Andrews French Vernacular Book project, completed and published in 2007 (FB volumes 1 & 2).
Meanwhile, partners in University College Dublin created a bibliography of books published in the Iberian Peninsula (IB).
In 2011 this was all brought together with information on books published in Italy, Germany and Britain to create a fully searchable resource covering all of Europe.
The St Andrews project team were able to develop a database containing information on over 52,000 editions, surviving in over 175,000 copies located in 1,600 libraries world-wide.
At its conclusion the French project led to publication of a two volume hard copy short title catalogue: FB.
The invention of printing in the fifteenth century revolutionised information culture, vastly multiplying the number of books in circulation.
Printing also stimulated the production of new types of books, such as news pamphlets, and the influential propaganda works of the Protestant Reformation.
Overall this amounted to a huge volume of books: at least 350,000 separate editions, a total of around two hundred million printed items.
The USTC will make good these deficiencies in a project with two strands by completing the coverage of European print by gathering comprehensive date on all parts of Europe lacking such a survey.