A History of Bibliographies of BibliographiesTaylor, Archer
History
A History of Bibliographies of Bibliographies
Taylor, Archer
Bibliography of bibliographies -- History
Grundtvig's pamphlet of 1919, entitled _Om Bibliografi og
Bibliografier_, is much more conveniently arranged than the article
of 1903. It is a review of the bibliographical chapter in Svend Dahl,
_Haandbog i Bibliotekskundskab_. He finds it very unsatisfactory
and shows how it might have been written. He gives a brief survey
of bibliographies in general (pp. 8-10), comments on the making of
collectanea and their arrangement (pp. 10-13) and the varieties of
bibliographies including those in non-bibliographical works (pp.
14-19), and surveys bibliographies of bibliographies (pp. 19-23),
international bibliographies (pp. 23-25), and national bibliographies
(pp. 25-29). In keeping with his purpose, he names only the most
obvious works.
We come now to the largest of all bibliographies of bibliographies:
Theodore Besterman, _A World Bibliography of Bibliographies_
(1939-1940; 2d ed., 1947-1949). Since the two editions do not differ
essentially in character, I have found it convenient and probably
more helpful to the reader to cite illustrations of Besterman's
method from the second edition and to conclude my remarks with
brief comment on the changes and improvements made in this edition.
The plan of Besterman's book is novel in many details. It is, like
Peignot's _Répertoire_ of 1812, an alphabetical list of many small
headings. Courtney had adopted the same plan in his _Register_
(1905-1912), but few others have seen the great merits of this
arrangement. In giving bibliographical details Besterman goes far
beyond anything that had been previously attempted. He gives more
complete collations than any of his predecessors except Petzholdt
had given, and in several regards surpasses Petzholdt. He describes
carefully such long sets as the _Catalogue of Books in the Library
of the Surgeon Generals Office_ (cols. 1866-1867), the many national
bibliographies made by booksellers or librarians, and the annual
bibliographies of special fields like _The Record of Zoological
Literature_ and its continuation (cols. 3187-3189). He goes beyond
Petzholdt and most other bibliographers by estimating the number of
titles cited in the books that he lists. He ranges farther afield
than any of his predecessors. He includes lists of maps and printed
music, registers of documents and charters, and indexes of laws
and patents. He includes catalogues of manuscripts and specialized
catalogues of books in institutional libraries but not general
catalogues of books owned by the same libraries. He includes a
generous selection of specialized catalogues of private libraries. He
brings more Finnish, Hungarian, and Slavic titles than anyone before
him and regrets his inability to include books in Oriental languages.
In the first edition he intended to cite all bibliographies printed
as books that had appeared before 1936 and succeeded in picking up
a large number of those printed between 1936 and 1939. He says that
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