State Bibliography

State Bibliography 

one of the fundamental types of bibliography; it registers and provides information about all published works brought out in a country. The registration is as a rule based on obligatory copies received by the country’s bibliographical center from publishing houses or printers; this assures nationwide completeness in the recording of published works. The publications system of the state bibliography is the all-inclusive source of information on printed materials; it serves as the base for the development of other types of bibliography, provides data for official publishing statistics, and reflects the state of culture, science, and technology in a given country, thus contributing to their progress.

In the socialist countries the state bibliography is planned, financed, and organized by the state. In the USSR the state bibliographic centers are the All-Union Book Chamber, the book chambers of the Union republics, and the state libraries of the republics (ASSR’s), with the exception of the Tatar, Bashkir, and Chuvash ASSR’s, where book chambers have been instituted. These centers issue bibliographic bulletins (“annals”) and yearbooks by topic, which form a complete system of bibliographical publications that are part of the nationwide system of scholarly and scientific information. In other countries national libraries are the usual bibliographic centers.

The term “national bibliography” is often used as well as “state bibliography,” but not always with the same meaning. National bibliography covers not only the writings of the country in question but also works published in the same language in other countries; in some instances it means works written by authors of the same nationality or even literature about the given country that has been published outside its borders in any language. However, record keeping by geographic area (state) is more common and expedient.

REFERENCES

Gosudarstvennaia bibliografiia SSSR: Spravochnik, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1967.
Sorok let sovetskoi gosudarstvennoi bibliografii (1920–1960). Moscow, 1960. (Collection of articles.)
Gudovshchikova, I. V. “O poniatii ‘natsional’naia bibliografiia.’ ” Sovetskaia bibliografiia, 1959, issue 5 (57).
Gudovshchikova, I. V. “Bibliografiia ‘patriotiki,’ natsional’naia i kraevedcheskaia bibliografiia.” Ibid., 1966, issue 6(100).

I. V. GUDOVSHCHIKOVA and A. I. SEREBRENNIKOV