In fall 1996, the Cotsen staff began compiling a multi-volume book catalogue of the research collection, with support from the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections and the Technical Services Department of the Princeton University Library.

With the publication in 2020 of The Pre-1801 volumes I (A-K) and II (L-Z), the project now covers publications from the earliest books through the 20th century.

Preceded by those for the Twentieth Century (12,403 entries) and the Nineteenth Century (6, 370 entries), these final descriptive volumes cover 1,309 entries for books printed between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. In these volumes one will encounter detailed descriptions of children's books produced during the decades leading up to an intellectual culmination that was established by the end of the 18th century: that is, the idea of the children's book as one designed for "instruction and delight."

"As one surveys the centuries of books included in these volumes, one notices a distinct pattern. About half the books are deliberately instructive--they were crafted to get across fundamentals in several realms of knowledge. ... Running parallel with these instructive works, and making up the balance of material gathered here, are literary materials ranging from illustrated Bibles and compilations of fables down to scruffy, cheap, and singular editions of popular stories, many lingering and growing out of the fare of medieval romantic and chivalric literature." (Preface)

Designed by Mark Argetsinger, and uniform in format of the preceding volumes, the volumes are lavishly illustrated with 345 illustrations in duotone and process color printed on Mohawk Superfine paper. The volumes are bound in blue Japanese cloth with the front covers stamped in gold, and with illustrated endpapers.

An index covering all 20,082 entries was published in 2021.