A History of Bibliographies of BibliographiesTaylor, Archer
History
A History of Bibliographies of Bibliographies
Taylor, Archer
Bibliography of bibliographies -- History
Enough of this! The picture is not all black. Namur's account of
dictionaries of anonyma and pseudonyma[144] contains more titles
printed before 1838 than any other bibliography. There are some
duplications but few outright errors. His important list of books
dealing with the history of libraries and including catalogues
of institutional libraries[145] is the most useful one that I
know. He has ranged so widely as to cite the library catalogues
of the American Philosophical Society and the Library Company of
Philadelphia and (inaccurately) the Harvard College Library catalogue
of 1790. Such titles rarely come to the knowledge of European
bibliographers. The following section (II, 167-226, Nos. 721-2573)
is an equally full review of catalogues of private libraries. As he
says in a footnote at the beginning, he has made a special effort
to attain completeness. I can cite no list of trade catalogues
and publishers' catalogues comparable to Namur's (I, 171-193,
Nos. 1283-1857). I cannot judge competently his list of printer's
type facsimiles (I, 144-146, Nos. 673-768), but its extent and
the variety of printers named is impressive. His list of national
biobibliographical dictionaries (II, 106-122, Nos. 86-390) is far
from complete, but I see in the Italian section (II, 108-110, Nos.
129-169) several unusual titles. The subject bibliographies seem less
rich to me, but there are one hundred and sixteen bibliographies
of medicine (II, 77-83, Nos. 1457-1573) and eight bibliographies
of veterinary medicine (II, 84, Nos. 1574-1581). More examples of
Namur's diligence would be wearisome and would add nothing to the
picture. In spite of vexatious errors of all kinds Namur often names
a title not easily found elsewhere.
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