Definitions:
- Document = any full or partial article or other item held in the Sussex Harvard Information Bank (SHIB) or in associated collections. May include more than one extract from a publication that might be relevant to separate fileheadings; each will count as a document.
- Side = one side of a piece of paper. The term page is deliberately avoided as it can lead to confusion as to whether a page is single-sided or double-sided. The number of sides for most documents is taken from the metadata of digitally-preserved versions; as some (especially older) documents are from poor quality originals they may have had pages scanned at more that one density in order to ensure all elements are readable. This can make some documents appear to be longer.
- SHIB coded = has at least one code for a SHIB fileheading or document type searchable in the catalogue.
- Web linked = document (and thus the sides included within it) have an weblink in the catalogue. Web links were only included for items catalogued from the middle of 2025 but will be added to earlier items as time permits.
- SHIB+web = both SHIB coded and web linked.
By documents:
Latest snapshot by documents = 10am 9 April 2026
- Total docs – 48,720
- SHIB coded – 12,571 (25.80% of total)
- Web linked – 3,867 (7.94% of total)
- SHIB+web – 925 (7.36% of SHIB-coded, 1.90% of total)
Snapshot by documents @ end of day 10 March 2026
- Total docs – 48,078
- SHIB coded – 12,379 (25.75% of total)
- Web linked – 3,407 (7.09% of total)
- SHIB+web – 744 (6.01% of SHIB-coded, 1.55% of total)
By sides
[Generating a snapshot by sides takes more time than one by documents and so is captured less often.]
Latest snapshot by sides = end of day 10 March 2026
- Total sides – 329,345
- SHIB coded – 87,474 (26.56% of total)
- Web linked – 34,206 (10.39% of total)
- SHIB+web – 11,559 (13.21% of SHIB-coded, 3.51% of total)
Some background details:
Focused efforts to digitize SHIB started in early 2024 with the receipt of first funding to support this. The current estimate of the number of unique sides of paper within the physical holdings of the main section of the Sussex Harvard Information Bank (SHIB) is roughly 750,000. Making an assessment of how many documents this might represent can vary depending on assumptions made.
SHIB has always been designed and maintained as a physical collection of hard copies of documentation and other materials. The CBW Events collection was focused on digital holdings. The most efficient way of creating a digital version of SHIB is to utilize already collected materials in the CBW Events holdings and insert SHIB codings to match those on the physical copies. The main exception to this practice is if Julian had annotated a paper with something more than just fileheading information. While there is much material in SHIB that was not also captured in the CBW Events collection, this approach significantly reduces the total workload.
With Julian’s passing in 2020, new physical material is not being directly added to SHIB other than rare exceptions. New digital material is being added to this catalogue.
The catalogue therefore contains a mix of materials: documents that have been directly taken from SHIB and are coded to reflect this; relevant materials from the CBW Events collection that overlap with SHIB and will eventually be SHIB-coded; and post-2020 materials. In each of these categories, not all materials have yet been entered into the catalogue.