College and Research Libraries


This very handsome volume, with its fine 
plates, has been produced with the artistry 
and care characteristic of recent Cambridge 
University Press books. One could not imag-
ine a more appropriate format for this brief 
but useful contribution to the history of pub-
lishing.—Rollo G. Silver, School of Library 
Science, Simmons College. 

Bibliographies of Bibliographies 
A History of Bibliographies of Bibliographies. 

By Archer Taylor. N e w Brunswick, N. J.: 
Scarecrow Press, 1955. ix, 147 p. $3.50. 

In this notable contribution to professional 
literature, Professor Taylor returns to the con-
sideration of that "essence of an essence," 
that "sophisticated tool" which, within nar-
rower limits, he discussed with so much grace 
and learning, a decade ago, in his Renaissance 
Guides to Books. N o w he traces the history 
of bibliographies of bibliographies from Je-
rome the canonized to Besterman the blessed 
and beset. H e has restricted himself to "works 
of universal scope"; some 50 names or titles 
appear in the index. 

T o Conrad Gesner's Pandectae (1548) he 
gives credit for "an auspicious beginning of 
a very difficult aspect of bibliography," and 
for constituting "the first modern bibliog-
raphy of bibliographies," which "aimed at 
comprehensiveness and included works of all 
ages as far as they came to his knowledge." 
Francis Sweerts' Athenae Belgicae (1628) is 
said to have been not only "the first classified 
bibliography of bibliographies" but also "the 
first independent or almost independent bib-
liography of bibliographies," a qualified pri-
macy which, in its fullest sense, he reserves 
for Philip Labbe's Bibliotheca Bibliotheca-
rum (1652). 

There are interesting accounts of the efforts 
(so far fruitless) to recover Jodocus Dudinck's 

vanished Bibliothecariographia (1643), of the 
unpublished Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum of 
Cornelius a Beughem, and of the lost man-
uscript of Charles Moette's Bibliotheca Al-
phabetica, this last the only treatise on the 
subject which "can be dated in the eighteenth 
century." 

Professor Taylor refers to "the temptation 
that comes to every bibliographer to wander 
afield and include works of little pertinence 

to the task," and insists that "accuracy, indus-
try, and learning are not the only virtues re-
quired of a bibliographer," adding that "a 
bibliographer must be a practical man who 
sees how his book will be used." H e concedes 
that "any definition of a bibliography is dif-
ficult to formulate and even more difficult to 
adhere to." T h e penultimate chapter is de-
voted to modern "Periodical and Cooperative 
Enterprises." T h e conclusion reached is that 
"with all their faults and insufficiencies—and 
what human works lack them?—bibliogra-
phies of bibliographies are very valuable aids 
to scholars." "Each age," Professor Taylor 
avers, "must create its own bibliography of 
bibliographies." 

Professor Taylor alludes to his study as an 
"historical summary," but it is more than 
that: it is criticism at its finest and soundest, 
too.—David C. Mearns, Library of Congress. 

Books, Libraries & Librarians 
Books, Libraries, Librarians. Contributions 

to Library Literature. Selected by John 
David Marshall, Wayne Shirley and Louis 
Shores. Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 
1955. 432p. $6. 

T h e compilation offered by Mr. Marshall 
and his associates is intended to include a 
"representative selection" from the "body 
of professional literature" which possesses 
the "quality of readability," to provide "a 
source of pleasure and of profit to the pro-
fession's tyro and veteran alike," and to be 
"read by librarians and library school stu-
dents seeking recreation, instruction and 
perhaps even inspiration." (Introduction, 
p. [xi]) Inasmuch as more than a quarter of 
the authors are non-librarians, the meaning 
given to "body of professional literature" is 
a rather unusual and certainly a very broad 
one. But let it stand without argument. 

T h e work is divided into four sections: 
"Books and Reading," with 13 papers; "Li-
braries," with 11; "Librarians and Librar-
ianship," with 16; and four notable state-
ments of the librarian's profession, "The 
Freedom to Read," "The Library Bill of 
Rights," "The ALA Statement on Labeling," 
and the "Code of Ethics." 

This is, in several respects, an astonishing 
florilegium. Of the 40 articles and essays, 

MAY, 1956 275