Open data? Open science? Open methods?
National bibliographies are essentially about mapping the national canon of publishing, but integrating data across borders should be managed in a way that takes into account specific local circumstances while also helping to overcome the national view in analyzing the past. We are now expanding our pilot study on the Finnish and Swedish bibliographies towards large-scale integration of national bibliographies in the CERL Heritage of the Printed Book Database. Such integration can help scholarship to reach a more precise view of print culture beyond the confines of national bibliographies.
Importantly, our key observations regarding vernacularization etc. are supported by similar trends across multiple independently maintained bibliographies. This exemplifies the power of such approach in uncovering broad patterns in knowledge production, which are robust to occasional inaccuracies in the data.