History of Bibliographies

As I have been working to figure out what to do for this project I honestly was confused for a time because everything I tried to search for to find some decent books on this subject were not really coming up. I finally found something about the history of bibliographies (which finding a subject that didn't already have the book checked out that I was looking at online was what became my hardest challenge). Funny thing as I was looking at bibliographies for some reason my brain kept thinking that I was trying to tell it that biographies and bibliographies are the same thing. Biographies- descriptions of people in history. Bibliographies- things used to cite documents and sources.


E. W. Padwick, Bibliographical Method, James Clarke and Co. Ltd., 1969
[I found this book when I was looking at the section Z 1001 where books on bibliographies are located.]
The Bibliographical Method discusses how some of the first printed biographies came about. They were not widely printed until Conrad Gesner, in 1545, Published Bibliotheca universalis.  A book which had over 1,264 folio pages with numerous author writings published in this book, including a bibliography of every author.
(link to where to find Bibliographical Method  HBLL website)

George Schneider(Translated by Ralph Robert Shaw), Theory and History of Bibliography, New York Columbia University Press, 1934
[This Book was also found as I scoured section Z 1001 looking for books that had titles that had to do with the history of Bibliographies]
The Theory and History of Bibliography talks about how bibliography's came to be the type of book that they are. Originally they were defined as the mechanical writing and transcription of books. Ebert is quoted as having said that bibliographies are, "in the broadest sense, the science that deals with literary productions." Ebert was one of the greatest German bibliographers.
(link to Theory and History of Bibliography  HBLL website)

D. F. McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts, Cambridge University Press, 1999
[Bibliography and the Sociology of Text was also found in the Z 1001 section of the HBLL.]
Mr. G Thomas Tanselle one said, referring to bibliographies, "a related group of subject that happen to be commonly referred to by the same term." Theory and History of Bibliography divides bibliographies into a number of categories; enumerative or systematic bibliography, descriptive, analytical, textual, and historical bibliography.
(link to Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts HBLL website)

D. W. Krummel, Bibliographies Their Aims and Methods, Mansell Publishing Limited, 1984
[Bibliographies Their aims and Methods was found on a shelf again in the Z 1001 section.]
Bibliographies Their Aims and Methods points out that bibliographies are not as Sir Walter Greg said, "it is convenient to students of any subject to regard bibliographers as a race of useful drudges-servi a bibliotheca-who are there to do for them some of the spade-work they are too lazy or too incompetent to do for themselves." D. W. Krummel discusses that the earliest bibliographies may be lost in historical records and that bibliographies themselves coincided with the origins of research during the time of Aristotle.
(link to Bibliographies Their Aims and Method Villinova Website)

Robin Myers and Michael Harris, Pioneers in Bibliography, St. Paul's Bibliographies, 1988
[Pioneers in Bibliography was found in section Z1001]
Robin Myers and Michael Harris point out that bibliographers who pioneered catalogues of medieval for the most part nothing is know about them. Very few bibliographers do we even know there names unless they signed their library catelogue. These men point out that only through bibliographers writings are we able to learn to about why these men compiled the works that they did.
(link to Pioneers in Bibliography HBLL website)