In his article 'The Periodical Literature of English and American
Bibliography',[1] G. Thomas Tanselle
provided a valuable service to bibliographers in identifying the major
English-language periodicals 'containing material of bibliographical
interest', both defunct and current, and in tabulating the years during which
these periodicals have been 'covered' in nine indexing services. It was not
Tanselle's purpose to describe the nature of the coverage, but
it has seemed to me worth while to take his study that step further. What
follows is a series of linked observations on the indexing of bibliographical
periodicals designed to show how much is being indexed and how
appropriately the indexing is being done.
Because at the time of writing the latest volume of
MHRA
available covers the publications of 1974, in specifics the observations are
in the main concerned with periodicals bearing a 1974 cover date. And they
are confined to the four major bibliographical periodicals: The Book
Collector, The Library, Papers of the
Bibliographical Society of America, and Studies in
Bibliography, referred to as BC,
Library,
PBSA, and SB. I have confined myself to these
four
since, because they are the most widely indexed, they allow the greatest
number of comparisons to be made; and because they are the
major bibliographical periodicals they might be expected to show the
indexing services at their best.
Other abbreviations used are:
-
ABHB ABHB. Annual Bibliography of the
History of the Printed Book and Libraries
-
BI Bibliographic Index
-
BHI British Humanities Index
-
EGLI Essay and General Literature Index
-
HI Humanities Index
-
IBZ Internationale Bibliographie der Zeitschriften-literatur
aus allen Gebieten des Wissens
-
LL Library Literature
-
MHRA MHRA Annual Bibliography of English Language
and Literature
-
MLA MLA International Bibliography
