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But the fact that bibliographical articles do get listed in this way does not mean that a listing devoted exclusively to bibliographical articles is superfluous—an article on a particular writer, for example, may employ an unfamiliar bibliographical technique, and the bibliographical importance of the article may not be as readily recognized if it is not recorded in a bibliographical context. There is simply no substitute for a serial listing which takes bibliography as its field of knowledge (p. 172).

Bibliographers would no doubt agree. But is there an index which provides access by bibliographical technique? The headings employed by MHRA and MLA have been noted above; the other comprehensive indexes offer little or no advance on them:

ABHB is some advance in that it uses the much finer classification scheme adopted from Bibliography in Britain. But it still indexes by materials, author, or other definable 'subject', not by technique.

LL (see below) offers no advance on the others: since physical bibliography is a peripheral subject for LL the relevant headings are particularly broad.

IBZ (see below) similarly uses only the broadest of subject headings (alongside specific headings for persons etc.), such as Bibliographie (in its various significations), Typographie etc.

In fact, the only index I am aware of which indexes by technique is the annual index to Library, and obviously its utility is confined to that title. (Note that the annual indexes to BC and PBSA are confined to proper names.)

The nature of the different indexes may be judged by the entries assigned one article, for convenience taken from Library 30 (1975), part 1, 'Punctuation and the compositors of Shakespeare's Sonnets, 1609':

Library: Bibliographic method: compositors' stints distinguished by punctuation and spacing habits, 1-24

Bodleian Library, Oxford, Shakespeare quartos watermarks, 11
Composition: Shakespeare Sonnets (1609), 1-24
English studies: W. Shakespeare, 1-24
Jackson, MacD. P. 'Punctuation and the compositors of Shakespeare's Sonnets, 1609', 1-24
Poetry: W. Shakespeare, 1-24
Punctuation: MacD. P. Jackson, 'Punctuation and the compositors of Shakespeare's Sonnets, 1609', 1-24
Shakespeare, William, Sonnets (1609), compositors' stints distinguished by punctuation and spacing, 1-24
Skeletons (in press work): W. Shakespeare Sonnets (1609), 2-3
Spelling: evidence for compositors' stints concurs with punctuation habits, 1-24
Watermarks: Shakespeare Sonnets (1609), 11n. (+ references to 26 authors referred to or quoted from)
LL: Criticism, Textual
Printing. History
MLA: English Literature VI. Renaissance and Elizabethan. Shakespeare. Sonnets
IBZ: Shakespeare, William
[MHRA]: Bibliography. Book Production, Printing, and Textual Studies
Sixteenth Century. William Shakespeare. Separate Works. The Sonnets

If bibliography as a field of knowledge and indexing by technique were to be combined the resulting index would need to be akin to the annual indexes to Library. Whether it would be practicable to apply that level of indexing to a number of discrete items even as small as a thousand or so is perhaps a moot point. National ventures would be an appealing avenue, though the much-delayed Bibliography in Britain does not offer an encouraging example. An alternative avenue would be the indexing of a fixed list: perhaps the yet-to-be-published Bodleian Index to Certain Bibliographical Journals [of 1933-1965] could provide the basis for an on-going index.

In the meantime MHRA must be regarded as the most satisfactory index to Anglo-American bibliography, supplemented—for the most recent two years—by MLA.