Andrew Pettegree and Malcolm Walsby initiated the field work for USTC 17 with a trip to libraries in Brussels and Antwerp.

The new survey of books published in the Low Countries, 1601-1650, will be a co-operative venture with the two established bibliographical projects, the STCN (Netherlands) and STCV (Vlaanderen).  For the northern Netherlands work will consist of examining material in libraries outside the Netherlands.  The survey of the 17^th century southern Netherlands will require more fundamental work to incorporate materials published in the French-speaking Walloon towns and in Brussels.

During this first trip the USTC researchers concentrated attention on the fine pamphlet collections of the Royal Library in Brussels and in the Museum Plantin Moretus in Antwerp.  Adopting the STCN fingerprinting system used in both established bibliographies will all USTC researchers working in remote libraries to differentiate pamphlets often published in several simultaneous editions.  The first stage of this work in Belgium permitted the identification of around 150 editions not previously described in the national bibliographical projects as well as the logging of several hundred additional copies.  Work will continue in Belgian Libraries in May.