The online Translation Studies Bibliography, is the result of a project that started in 2001. The first contacts involving EST, CETRA, Lessius University College and John Benjamins were made in November 2001, and by September 2002 the cooperation agreement between John Benjamins Publishing Company and Lessius University College had been signed, an Editorial Board had been created, and project staff had been hired.

In the first stage, the project concentrated on defining its scope and on developing a model for the classification and the description of publications in translation and interpreting studies. In these stages, valuable lessons were learnt from that other major bibliographical effort of Benjamins, viz. the Bibliography of Pragmatics. Luc van Doorslaer and Ine Van linthout, in cooperation with Yves Gambier, drew up a topical map and a key-word system, which were validated by a pilot project focusing on a limited number of publications and through discussions with the Editorial Board. At John Benjamins, the interface was being developed at full speed, while the Editorial Board were building a network of contributors, in close cooperation with EST and CETRA.

The pilot phase was concluded in February 2003 – which meant work could start in earnest. The project team at Lessius, with Ine Van linthout, Karen Foelen, Lysbeth Jans, Katrien Lannoy and Jurgen Vluymans in a later stage, started compiling entries and writing abstracts, while at the same time a number of external contributors started sending in materials, which were then entered and edited by the team.

The project benefits from the cooperation with existing partial bibliographies such as BITRA (Javier Franco), TRANSST (Gideon Toury), and Rita Jääskeläinen's 'Bibliography on think-aloud protocol studies into translation'. The Department of Translation and Interpreting at VLEKHO (Brussels) provided support in the form of an additional member for the project team. Crucial IT-support was provided by Rhesa Roozendaal and Anke de Looper at John Benjamins and Raf Steenwegen at Lessius. Nadine Van den Eynden-Morpeth took charge of the linguistic editing of the abstracts.

We hope that this bibliography will prove to be a useful tool for researchers in translation studies, and that it will help them find their way in the ever expanding field.