1. Bibliographical Society Journals
The organs of bibliographical societies naturally constitute the central
group of journals for bibliographical study, both because they are scholarly
in approach and because they are not usually limited to any one aspect of
the book. The Library, the publication of the Bibliographical
Society (London), has the most distinguished history of any such journal,
for even before it became officially connected with the Bibliographical
Society in 1920 it was oriented as much toward physical bibliography as
toward librarianship and was publishing the work of Pollard, Plomer, and
Greg. Even though it was not a bibliographical society journal from 1889
through 1919, therefore, it deserves a place in this group as a general
scholarly journal of bibliography. Because of its importance, it has probably
been indexed more times than any other bibliographical journal: its entire
run is covered in Library Literature; the Cole and Turner
indexes cover it through 1965; the IBZ
takes it from 1911 forward; and practically all the other major periodical
indexes treat substantial segments of it. Before the Bibliographical Society
took over the Library, it published its
Transactions
(1893-1919) separately, and they, too, are covered both in Library
Literature and in Cole.[15] The
principal American journal, the Papers of the Bibliographical Society
of America (1904- ), is much less satisfactorily indexed in these
guides: although it turns up in a number of indexes, the periods involved
are so scattered that, in order to cover the pre-SB years (other
than in PBSA's own cumulative indexes),[16] one must consult at least two
different
indexes (Library Literature for 1904-14 and the Annual
Magazine Subject Index for the remaining years through 1949).
Studies in Bibliography, the other
major bibliographical journal in English, has not been extensively indexed
in the general indexes,
[17] but there is
no problem in locating its contents since it is obviously included in the
annual lists of scholarship which it publishes.
Of the remaining journals of local bibliographical
societies—principally the bibliographical societies of Oxford,
Cambridge,
Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Wales—the years from 1933 on are taken
care
of in Turner's forthcoming index, but the earlier years are only haphazardly
covered. The Subject Index is the best that one can do for
this
purpose, since it includes the Glasgow society as of 1912, the Welsh as of
1915, and the Oxford as of 1926. Bibliographical societies such as those of
Cambridge, Canada, and Australia and New Zealand, whose publications
began after 1948, are of course included in the SB checklist,
but
the earlier publications of the Bibliographical Society of Ireland are not
listed in any of the basic indexes. Finally, a few other general journals,
technically not organs of bibliographical societies, belong in this group. The
most illustrious early one, Bibliographica (planned from the
beginning to last only three years, 1895-97, and full
of contributions by Pollard, Plomer, Madan, Proctor, and Redgrave), is
completely indexed in Cole; the Bibliographical Register
(1905-07), significant if not equally important, does not appear in the lists
of any of the standard indexes; the Gutenberg Jahrbuch
(1926-
), which over the years has contained many important articles in English
on all aspects of bibliography, is not adequately covered in the periodical
indexes, not even appearing in IBZ until 1963 (the first
fifteen
years are indexed in IBBB, but a gap of over twenty years
still
remains); and the Bibliotheck, containing much valuable
Scottish material, only began in 1956 and is recorded in SB.
The situation can therefore be summarized in this way: for the
pre-SB years, Turner's index takes care of most of the
bibliographical society journals back to 1933; but for the years before that,
aside from Cole's coverage of the few major English publications, the
indexing of
these journals—including such important ones as PBSA
and
Gutenberg Jahrbuch—is either confusingly spread over
several
indexes or nonexistent.
