Internationale Bibliographie des Buch- und Bibliothekswesens, mit besondererBerücksichtigung der Bibliographie, Dreizehnter Jahrgang 1938 by Joris Vorstius; GerhardReinckeReview by: Carl L. CannonThe Library Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Apr., 1940), pp. 270-272Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4302711 .

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REVIEWS

Internationale Bibliographie des Buch- und Bibliothekswesens, mit besonderer Bcricksichtigung der Bibliographic, Dreizehnter Jahrgang 1938. In kriti- scher Auswahl zusammengestellt von JoRIs VORSTIUS und GERHARD

REINCKE. Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, I939. PP. xii+438.

The publication of the thirtieth annual issue of the Internationalk Biblio- graphie des Buch- und Bibliothekswesens (for 1938) offers a fresh opportunity for appraisal and comparison. This methodical garnering of titles relating to bib- liography and the book arts has long been a starting-point for bibliographical search; and its scope and usefulness have grown with the years.

Since the beginning of the new series in I928 under the direction of Rudolf Hoecker and Joris Vorstius, however, many new bibliographical indexes have come into existence. Most of these are confined to one subject; but the new Bibliographic index, first published in 1938 by the H. W. Wilson Company, also attempts to cover the entire field.

If the two books are examined together, the most obvious difference is the arrangement. The Internationak Bibliographic is broadly classified by sub- ject; the Bibliographic index offers a much larger number of subjects presented alphabetically. Both methods have advantages. The connection of related subjects under a broad classification scheme brings similar matter together and suggests numerous bypaths and new methods of approach. The alpha- betical arrangement has no subject continuity but makes possible minute topical divisions and, if the searcher has in mind exactly what he wants, more direct access to the bibliography desired. A further point in favor of the ar- rangement used in the German bibliography is that an alphabetical index of authors concludes the volume, whereas the American work depends entirely on the subject side. Furthermore, in the American work there is no condensed table of subject contents where all can be seen at a glance, as in the Inter- nationale Bibliographic. Such a table has the obvious advantage of guarding the searcher against overlooking a topic because he can never be sure to which place in the general scheme it might be assigned. This is important because a searcher, recognizing that the work is divided into two sections-one devoted to bibliography of bibliographies, and the second to bibliographies of the book and book arts-might well overlook the section "Buch- und Bibliothekswesen" classified under "Fachbibliographie" in the first division.

Both give a list of the periodicals, papers, and transactions analyzed in the front of the volume. Comparing the numbers in each, there are I13 such titles analyzed in the Internationale Bibliographic and 505 in the Wilson pub- lication. From further comparison one might generalize that the German in-

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REVIEWS 271

dex contains many more Continental publications-particularly German, Russian, Polish, and Czech-while the American work devotes much more space to American publications and those in the English language. Both prob- ably rely to a considerable extent on periodicals furnished them on ex- change; and yet the editor of the Bibliographic index reports that the proof sheets of the Card Division of the Library of Congress have been examined, as well as the card record of important bibliographies turned up by the Preparation Division of the New York Public Library. In addition, of course, both have listed monographic bibliographies when they appeared in the cur- rent year and came to the editors' attention.

Although not a fair comparison, because it is based on too few titles, it may be indicative of differences to note that of the first three titles in the Inter- nationalk Bibliographie-"Arts et m6tiers graphiques," "Association of Spe- cial Libraries and Information Bureaux. Report of proceedings," and "Acca- demie e biblioteche d'Italia"-none are to be found in the American index; and of the first three listed in the latter-"Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia," "Academy of Science of St. Louis," and "Agriculture and livestock in India"-none are to be found in the German publication. It merely illustrates how vast is the field and how many must be the bibliog- raphies that slip through the fingers of the editors each year.

A more serious indictment of the Wilson index is that, of the thirty-two entries listed in the Internationale Bibliographic under the heading "Vereinigte Staaten und Kanada," eighteen are not to be found in the American publica- tion. Among the periodicals indexed which are lacking in the Wilson index are the Iowa journal of history and politics; Publications of the University of Washington faculty, Library series; and the Canadian periodical index. There are, perhaps, more technical and agricultural periodicals included in the American list, and it is fair to say that the material indexed will be found more useful to many types of American libraries. Nevertheless, the omissions are in frequent instances important and should be corrected in future issues.

An extremely useful feature of the Wilson annual volume-which, in- cidentally, is published in quarterly instalments-is a list of cumulative in- dexes to individual periodicals, compiled by Margaret Roys, of the Columbia University Library. It runs to twelve pages and should prove extremely use- ful to harassed reference librarians.

To turn again to the Internationale Bibliographic, it has been fluctuating in size since the first volume of the new series edited by Joris Vorstius appeared in I928 carrying bibliographies for the year I926. That early volume indexed io8 titles and ran to 130 pages; the 1932 number indexed I43 titles and ran to 370 pages; the I938 annual issue, as has been stated, indexed I13 titles and runs to 438 pages. The slight change in number of periodicals indexed and the larger number of pages found in later volumes may be explained on the basis of more thorough indexing or on the inclusion of more monographs or both. Probably the latter is chiefly responsible.

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272 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

Political wanderings, as the editor explains, have been taken care of. Austria and Sudetenland are listed this year under the German Reich. Czechoslovakia will go there next year, but was not swallowed quite soon enough to so appear in 1938. Special thanks are given to the Jagellon Library of Cracow for furnishing the Polish articles. Gerhard Reincke joins J. Vorstius this year in an editorial capacity.

CARL L. CANNON Brown University

Providence, Rhode Island

The bibliographic index: a cumulative bibliography of bibliographies, 1938. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1939. Pp. ix+344. Sold on service basis.

If a bibliography of bibliographies running to 7,ooo and more entries is staggering-well, we "asked for it," we have been asking for it for centuries. It is, of course, confusion to any reviewer who believes in careful reading of the books he reviews. There are doubtless omissions, but who is there that dares undertake to list them comprehensively? And if the reviewer samples it and finds under "(Greek) Papyrology" none of the three or four important bib- liographies he knows of, what does it signify unless, perhaps, that the sample was inadequate? And who is he to say that a bibliography of Greek papyrus studies is more important than one on "Animal locomotion" (title: "The sequential patterning of prone progression in the human infant") or one on "Enemata" (title: "The royal rood")?

However, if the reviewer dares not venture opinions on the comparative completeness of the Bibliographic index, he can hardly be excused from having opinions as to its usefulness to librarian, bibliographer, and scholar. The li- brarian expects a bibliography to perform a service similar to that of the library catalog, only on a broader basis, since it is not limited to the contents of one library and includes "analytical" entries of articles in periodicals, of parts of books, etc., as very few library catalogs do at all extensively.

The Bibliographic index cuts this scope in two in that it "locates" material by subject only and not by author. Why the editors adopted this policy, the Preface does not say. Very likely it represents a necessary economy, and it must be admitted that, by long experience, subject-bibliographers have come to prefer arrangement by subject, with or without author index.

However, the subject-bibliographer does not in general follow the "dic- tionary" style of arrangement, but classifies; and even librarians, who in gen- eral favor the dictionary arrangement in their library catalogs, must base their preferences on the assumption that the books are also available by a classification scheme of arrangement on shelves and in the shelflist. A bib- liography arranged under detailed "specific" subject entries, supplemented by no classified arrangement, and with no author index, thus functions in only one of the three ways of the library catalog.

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