bibliography (redirected from bibliographies)

bibliography. The listing of books is of ancient origin. Lists of clay tablets have been found at Nineveh and elsewhere; the library at Alexandria had subject lists of its books. Modern bibliography began with the invention of printing and at first consisted of "trade" bibliographies, i.e., lists of the publications of important publishing houses, comparable to those in the present-day Publisher's Trade List Annual, British Books in Print, and Books in Print. There have been efforts at universal bibilography: in 1545 at Zürich, Konrad von Gesner published his Bibliotheca universalis; in 1895 the International Institute of Bibliography was established at Brussels. There are national bibliographies, such as the Library of Congress Catalog and the British Museum Catalogue; subject bibliographies, such as Sabin's Dictionary of Books Relating to America; and lists of the works of individual authors. Bibliographies of rare and old books include Book Prices Current. The Cumulative Book Index is a monthly bibliography of books in the English language that cumulates annually. The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature is useful for British publications, and the Bibliographic Guide to the Study of the Literature of the U.S.A., by C. L. Gohdes, for American works. The Bibliographical Index, which is cumulative, and World Bibliography of Bibliographies are useful compilations. The term bibliography is also used to describe books as physical objects and their production history, and has been expanded to include nonprint media such as microfilm.

Bibliography

See A. J. K. Esdaile, Manual of Bibliography (4th ed. 1967); R. Downs, Bibliography (1967); E. W. Padwick, Bibliographical Method (1969); A. M. Robinson, Systematic Bibliography (3d ed. 1971); R. Stokes, The Function of Bibliography (1982); D. Drummel, Bibliographies (1984).

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bibliography

Broadly, the systematic study and description of books. The word can refer to the listing of books according to some system (called descriptive, or enumerative, bibliography), to the study of books as tangible objects (called critical, or analytical, bibliography), or to the product of those activities. The purpose of bibliography is to organize information about materials on a given subject so that students of the subject may have access to it. A descriptive bibliography may take the form of information about a particular author's works or about works on a given subject or on a particular nation or period. Critical bibliography, which emerged in the early 20th century, involves meticulous descriptions of the physical features of books, including the paper, binding, printing, typography, and production processes used, to help establish such facts as printing dates and authenticity.