There is a significant difference between the idea of a bibliography as a complete record of books on a particular subject or of a particular kind and that of bibliographies of bibliographies as they have been ordinarily made. To some extent every bibliography serves a practical need, but bibliographies of bibliographies have at first served this need somewhat unconsciously and have served it more and more deliberately as time has passed. As my comments in this essay have shown, the bibliography of bibliographies has been characteristically a tool having immediate practical usefulness. There are few exceptions to this rule: Namur's careless book of 1838, Besterman's book that we have just examined, and Josephson's bibliography of bibliographies of bibliographies that we shall mention at the end of this chapter include works that the compilers regarded as having historical interest rather than practical value. Conrad Gesner named in 1548 a considerable number of classical Greek and Latin works because they seemed to his contemporaries to serve their needs. This aspect of immediate contemporary usefulness has remained characteristic of bibliographies of bibliographies down to the present time. References to classical authorities had still a certain degree of practical value for Labbé (1664) and Teissier (1686, 1705). They have disappeared completely or almost completely from later bibliographies of bibliographies. During the last century this emphasis on immediate contemporary usefulness has perhaps expressed itself more clearly in acts than in words. For example, Peignot in 1812 is already looking in this direction. Although subsequent bibliographers may include outmoded books, their eyes turn, as Petzholdt's did in 1866, more and more consciously to modern writings. The four most recent bibliographies of bibliographies recognize fully that they intend to be primarily guides to the best modern sources of information.
In spite of its brave title, Internationale Bibliographie der Bibliographien (1939-1950), this book by Hanns Bohatta (1864-1950), Walter Funke, and Franz Hodes belongs on the level of bibliographies by Durey de Noinville and Michael de San José. It will only rarely aid either the beginner or the more advanced scholar. It is a selective bibliography and the choice of titles will satisfy no one. Obvious books are lacking[203] and worthless compilations are present.[204] The authors pay little attention to the categories that they set up.[205] The references are incomplete and inaccurate.[206] The comments are often misleading or erroneous. For example, the remark that Giuseppe Fumagalli, La bibliografia, is much less complete than Giuseppe Ottino and Giuseppe Fumagalli, Biblioteca bibliografica italiana, is a fundamental misapprehension of both works. The first is a handbook of general bibliography; the second is a bibliography of bibliographies written in Italian or concerned with Italy. The second book belongs elsewhere and the supplements to it should be cited at length because they were written, in part, by other authors. A comparison of the two books is without point. With all its faults this disorderly Internationale Bibliographie der Bibliographien yields useful information.[207]
The most ambitious and the best of these four modern selective bibliographies is L.-N. Malclès, Les Sources du travail bibliographique, I (Geneva, 1950). This deals with general works and cites almost exclusively bibliographies. A second volume (2 pts., Geneva, 1952), which deals with the humanities, has recently appeared. A third volume, which will deal with the sciences, is promised. An abbreviated edition has been published even though volume 3 has not yet been issued. Both the second and the promised third volume are subject bibliographies and therefore need no mention here. The first volume contains some information about books that are not bibliographies, although they are somewhat similar in nature to bibliographies. There is, for example, a very interesting chapter on encyclopedias (pp. 213-224) and another chapter (pp. 225-237) on collective biographies. The wholly practical spirit of Mlle. Malclès's endeavor appears clearly in her list of German encyclopedias. She is right in thinking that a modern worker will rarely look at a German encyclopedia older than Ersch and Gruber ("1818-1889, 97 vol. 4o [A-Z]"). The reference is, incidentally, not quite accurate, since large portions of the alphabet were never written. We hear nothing of the early German encyclopedist J. H. Alsted, who lived and wrote two generations before Louis Moréri (he is mentioned as the first French author of an encyclopedia on p. 219), or of Krünitz and Zedler, who wrote vast encyclopedias almost two centuries ago. Such German works are not appropriate to Mlle. Malclès's purpose, but their absence means that her book does not serve a student who wishes to inform himself about the historical development of encyclopedias. In other words, Mlle. Malclès has deliberately and successfully satisfied the needs of French scholars.
Mlle. Malclès's admirably organized and very rich list of currently useful bibliographies is, as Joris Vorstius says in his review, indispensable to every librarian. Particularly interesting are the introductory remarks in each chapter. These describe the general nature of the works listed and offer comparisons and critical comment on the value and purpose of the different works. This excellent orientation supplements the brief descriptive remarks attached to the titles. As I have already implied, Les Sources du travail bibliographique has been written for French reference librarians. For this reason Mlle. Malclès is often content to cite secondary authorities for bibliographies not written in French or concerned with subjects of minor interest to French students. This admirable book stands at the peak of selective bibliographies of bibliographies and is therefore a companion to Besterman's comprehensive work.
Robert L. Collison, Bibliographies Subject and National. A Guide to their contents, arrangement and use (London, 1951) is a pleasant little book containing the information promised in its title. It is a rare example of a bibliography written in a descriptive style that relieves the tedium of a list. The author has intended to offer no more than a brief handlist of currently useful works with some interpretative comments. He has succeeded well in his purpose.[208]
A recently published German counterpart to Malclès and Collison is Wilhelm Totok and Rolf Weitzel, Handbuch der bibliographischen Nachschlagewerke (1954). Less comprehensive than the French book and much richer than the English one, it is a meritorious compendium of currently useful bibliographies in all fields. The authors list bibliographies, library catalogues, biographical and biobibliographical handbooks, general and specialized encyclopedias, and treatises of various sorts that contain bibliographical information. Historical and descriptive remarks that are often very instructive introduce the chapters and sections and critical comments usually are appended to the titles cited. The choice of titles will, as the authors no doubt intended, serve best German readers. For example, no Spanish, Latin American, or Russian dictionaries of anonyma and pseudonyma are mentioned (pp. 70-73). I should scarcely agree with the opinion (p. 70) that interest in dictionaries of this sort subsided after the first decades of this century. An emphasis on modern writing often leads the authors to overlook earlier bibliographies that have not lost their usefulness. For example, Mundt's incomplete list (extending only to R) of European dissertations published before 1900 (p. 75) is not "the only means of identifying older university publications (dissertations)." The Catalogus dissertationum academicarum quibus nuper aucta est Bibliotheca Bodleiana MDCCCXXXII (Oxford, 1834) will serve this purpose very well and extends to the end of the alphabet. Bibliographies of university dissertations were, moreover, published in the early eighteenth century. I cannot understand why the authors chose to omit John Meier's enormous bibliography of German folklore in Hermann Paul, ed., Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, III (2d ed., Strassburg, 1909) or why they preferred Wilhelm Pessler's handbook of German folklore to the exclusion of the convenient bibliography in Adolf Spamer, Die deutsche Volkskunde (2d ed. [unchanged], Berlin, 1934-1935). Suggestions of this sort occur readily enough to any attentive reader and are intended to characterize the book rather than to point out its deficiencies. In my opinion, the authors have succeeded well in their intention which was to write a book occupying a position between a bulky guide to information and a beginner's handbook ("Vorwort," p. v).
We have come finally to the last bibliography of all. Its date (1901) entitles it to the first place in this chapter, but it stands last because it is an even more specialized compilation than a bibliography of bibliographies. This bibliography of bibliographies of bibliographies, that is to say, a bibliography in the third degree, is entitled Bibliographies of Bibliographies. The author is Aksel G. S. Josephson, a former member of the staff of the John Crerar Library. It is a chronological list of one hundred and fifty-six bibliographies of bibliographies. The conception is not new, but this pamphlet is the first separate publication of such a list. Similar lists are found of course in Peignot's Répertoire of 1812, Petzholdt's Bibliotheca bibliographica of 1866, and a great variety of other reference works. The pertinent sections in handbooks of library science, bibliography, and the like are usually of little interest or value, but Josephson lists them carefully. Perhaps forty titles that he names are significant. He has chosen the strange plan of a chronological arrangement of titles and adds to its inconvenience by providing neither an author nor a subject index. He has yielded to the temptation to include titles of no pertinence like treatises on systems of cataloguing (Nos. 41, 43),[209] H. B. Wheatley's What Is an Index? (No. 59), a guide for making a pastor's library (No. 77), a list of fictitious books (No. 80), and guides to the use of a library (Nos. 67, 69, 104). The many references to bibliographies in the Neuer Anzeiger für Bibliographie und Bibliothekswesen are no doubt pertinent but are scarcely as important as they are numerous. He has probably more references to bibliographical lists published in journals of library science than any other source of information.[210] The value of Josephson's pamphlet lies in an arrangement that makes apparent the historical development and emphasizes the growth of bibliographical lists in journals. Mistakes seem to be few.[211]
In making a second edition of the Bibliography of Bibliographies Josephson profited greatly from the long criticism by Vilhelm Grundtvig that we have already discussed. He replaced the chronological arrangement by a classified arrangement, within which he arranged titles chronologically. He added many new titles that he had found or had excerpted from Grundtvig's criticism. His retirement from active duty and long delays in publication greatly handicapped him in producing a satisfactory piece of work.