University of Virginia Library

III

Another question related to arrangement is how best to number the entries. The numbering can of course only reflect, and not determine, the arrangement of the material, and in many ways it is a trivial matter. Unquestionably there is a convenience in having entries numbered for reference, but one might assume that any system of numbering (or lettering), as long as it enabled one to locate an individual item, would serve the purpose. And so it would. Difficulties arise only when one wishes to make each number convey more information than simply a position in a sequence of entries. Bibliographers have been increasingly concerned with inventing entry numbers that reveal the place of an item in the general scheme of organization of the bibliography in which it appears. In early author bibliographies entries were either unnumbered or (as in Sadleir's Trollope) assigned simple consecutive integers, from 1 onward. Even after letters were introduced to identify the sections of a bibliography, the entry numbers still might be a straightforward numerical series within each section; thus in John Slocum and Herbert Cahoon's bibliography of Joyce (1953), entries 3, 4, 5, and 6 in section A all are concerned with Chamber Music.[52] A further development, generally associated with the Soho series and widely imitated in other bibliographies, was to assign a single number to each work and then to identify various editions with an attached lower-case letter ("A3b" would refer to the second edition of the third separately published

work by the author). This system was sometimes used illogically, with the appended letters occasionally referring to selected impressions (often subeditions) or issues as well as editions; and the Pittsburgh Series in Bibliography, beginning in 1972, sought to refine the system. Although the Pittsburgh volumes have varied somewhat from one to another, the general approach was set by Matthew J. Bruccoli, general editor of the series, in his bibliography of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1972). He employed references such as "A8.1.a*," in order to specify impressions ("a") and issues ("*") as well as editions ("1").[53] There can be no doubt that his reference numbers follow a more rigorously logical system and convey more information than those previously employed—though at the cost of some rather cumbersome combinations.

The discussion of entry numbering has not stopped there, however, for Craig S. Abbott, the author of another Pittsburgh bibliography (of Marianne Moore, 1977), has written an article on the subject, proposing a system that goes beyond Bruccoli's by taking subeditions into account (although he confusingly calls them "issues" and thus uses "issue" to mean two different things).[54] Each of his numbers contains a single period, which follows the edition designator; after the period, the figure indicating impression can be combined with lower-case letters to mark subeditions (if the letter precedes the impression number) and issues (if the letter follows the impression number), as well as with parenthetical numbers to mark states. An Abbott number might therefore look like "A9b.a6b(2)." The same number might even become "A9b.a6[b](2)," since italics specifies simultaneous publication[55] and brackets denote indeterminate order. Nor is this all, for if one accepts the suggestion that roman numerals be used for volume numbers and parenthetical letters for binding variants, one might have "A9b.a6[b](2)II(b)." Abbott's proposal has not put an end to the devising of systems: James L. W. West III, in his Styron bibliography (1977), sets forth and uses still another scheme[56] designed to convey almost as much, if in part rather different, information. An example of West's notation is "A4.I.a.1† b," in which

roman numerals refer to editions, lower-case letters to platings, arabic numbers to impressions, and superscript letters preceded by daggers to issues (superscript letters preceded by asterisks signify states). Both Abbott and West recognize the need for a level of classification between edition and impression, but one chooses subeditions and the other platings. As we have already noticed, these two approaches cannot be employed simultaneously for the actual arrangement of entries; they could, however, be combined in reference numbers, but such numbers—containing elements that do not relate to the position of the entry in a bibliography—would raise the fundamental question of what the function of reference numbering is. Indeed, the systems of Bruccoli, Abbott, and West already raise this question, for each seems to be moving beyond the use of the number as a locator for an item and toward the idea that the number is part of a notation system for recording in shorthand fashion many of the significant aspects of any copy of a book.

One may begin to think about this matter by observing that the complexity of a reference number does not increase its usefulness for locating an entry in a bibliography. Simple whole numbers, unencumbered with letters or decimals, will serve as well as complex combinations; in fact, they are preferable for this purpose, for they are generally easier to print in an index and (unless they are very long) to remember. The motivation for elaboration is obviously the desire to make the numbers meaningful and not merely arbitrary, and up to a point making them meaningful may also make them easier to remember—and at the same time makes an index particularly efficient, since each reference conveys some further information without the need for explanatory phrases. But as the impulse to elaborate grows, a point can be reached where the numbers are no longer very efficient simply as references, and their primary function becomes the provision of a coded statement. The latter approach is taken for granted by Abbott throughout his discussion. "The importance of reference numbers," he says at the outset, "has increased in recent years, largely because bibliographies that seek to be definitive must now reflect the findings of extensive machine collation." To anyone who thinks that reference numbers exist primarily to facilitate reference, the idea that their importance is affected by machine collation will be incomprehensible. The connection is not greatly clarified by his next sentence: "The numbers are needed to signal the ordering of more complex bodies of work and more complete descriptions of the various impressions and issues of an edition." Complex organization and description do not require complex reference numbers unless those numbers are meant to convey fairly detailed information about the items referred to. And whether the numbers ought to perform that function

is not a question with an obvious answer. Actually Abbott appears less interested in the labeling of entries than in the construction of a symbolic language for referring to books. By providing for the specification of binding variants, for instance, he is going beyond what would be called for in an entry number, since binding is only one of the matters that would be covered in an entry, and since other parts of the entry would deal with features that do not vary, or vary independently of the binding. His system seems headed in the direction of offering a means for denoting specific copies of books. He also explicitly claims another use for his reference numbers: "exact reference in apparatuses such as indexes of textual variants." An example of what he means is the use of index entries to sketch the textual history of a work by arranging the references in chronological order (thus often placing periodicals or anthologies before books by the author) and substituting other marks for commas to separate the figures (an equals sign to mean no revision and a plus to signify revision): "Ba55a=Ba55b=A1+A3.1+A3.2" (p. 73). This suggestion (though it is unlike the previous one in not tending toward the specification of individual copies) again assumes the value of making utilitarian references convey additional meaning: if reference numbers are to encode information about the items referred to, then an index citing such numbers is perforce informative, even without explanatory phrases, and one is naturally tempted to make it still more informative through the addition of a few more symbols.

Obviously one can use any reference number, however bizarre or unwieldy, to locate an item; one just accepts whatever number is provided and makes do with it. For this reason the whole question, as I have said, may be considered trivial. The only thing that makes it worth discussing is the possibility that a complex number may offer little, if any, advantage to compensate for its awkwardness. There is no question that many of the aims proposed as reasons for the elaboration of reference numbers are in themselves worthwhile; the issue is whether there is any point in attempting to achieve those aims by means of the reference numbering. The use of a classification scheme for reference numbers does frequently occur in certain areas, as in the arrangement of books on library shelves, where the motivation is to maintain a meaningful order and therefore to allow for indefinite expansion at any point. For the same reasons subject checklists may sometimes employ numbering systems akin to library classification schemes. In a descriptive bibliography of an author or publisher, on the other hand, or of an area or genre during a particular period, expandability has not generally been a major concern, even though new printings or editions of particular works may occur, and new works may be discovered. The elaborate

systems that have been used in author bibliographies in recent decades do provide for the addition of later editions and impressions to a sequence already begun but do not conveniently allow for the future discovery of editions, impressions, or works that would need to be interpolated between those already recorded. Embedded in these systems, therefore, is the same problem of interpolation that exists with a simple system of single sequential numbers. Letters or decimals can always be added, but if the references already contain letters and decimal points the result will be even more awkward. In any case such additions would decrease the utility of the references as conveyors of information, for numbers or letters would then not necessarily indicate the absolute position of an item in a series: "A9," for instance, would not mean the ninth book or pamphlet if "A6.5" had been inserted between "A6" and "A7." (The same would be true, of course, if numbers were skipped over in the original plan in anticipation of insertions.) It is clear, in other words, that the increased complexity of reference numbers has not produced an improvement in the way in which insertions are handled. Any possible benefits from their complexity must be looked for in another direction.

Those who have devised these complex systems obviously did not intend them to facilitate insertions but were concerned instead with creating references that would convey considerably more information than merely the location of an item in a bibliography. In fact, allowing for insertions, as we have just noticed, would in some respects work against the provision of information; the irony of this situation is that the former is a clear responsibility of reference numbering, whereas the latter is not directly related to the job of reference at all. This confusion of priorities is curious, since these systems were specifically designed for use in numbering entries; but from the results one can see that the designers were really interested in something else. In effect the goal of each (an explicit goal of Abbott's) was to develop a system of notation for referring to particular printings of particular editions of particular works; they then proposed to use this notation for numbering entries, without examining whether it was appropriate for that different purpose. Many of the situations in which bibliographical citations are used involve contexts that make such notation superfluous. A dealer's catalogue entry, for example, would make clear that the item described is a second printing or a third edition even if the appended citation included a reference number encoding that fact; the citation is purely a reference to a standard authority, and a simple arbitrary reference number would be no less informative in such a context. In an index to a bibliography a case can be made for reference numbers that contain

some informative elements, in order to eliminate the need for certain subheadings; but reference numbers of considerable complexity rarely offer additional benefits in an index, for they (however informative) cannot substitute for the entries themselves and are no more efficient in guiding one to the places where full information can be found. Abbott's idea that a notational system can be useful in an index to show textual revision is doubtful for similar reasons. Stringing the notations referring to particular editions together with plus and equals signs cannot possibly convey much about the textual history of a work and can neither substitute for the textual information that should be present in the actual entries nor direct the reader more effectively to those entries.[57]

Numbering for reference purposes, one must conclude, is not likely to be assisted, and may be made more awkward and inconvenient, by the assumption that some kind of work-edition-impression-issue notation can serve to form the reference numbers. But to say this is not to imply that such notation may not have value for other purposes. Formularies for concise notation are always potentially useful, to be drawn on at those times when saying the equivalent in words would be cumbersome and would impede the flow or reduce the clarity of a statement or discussion. However, a system for reducing phrases like "the second issue of the second printing of the third subedition of the first edition of the author's sixth book" to symbolic form cannot be expected to play as central a role in description as the formulary for signature collation does. In setting forth a collation formula one is making a substantive statement that would nearly always be less clear if expressed in words, and one can use symbols that remain constant in their signification from book to book. The places where one may at first be tempted to use a work-edition-impression notation, in contrast, will often prove to be places where the substantive content of the notation is not necessary (and any kind of reference number will do as well) or places where words seem preferable in the context; and while the general system can remain the same from book to book, the effective meaning of the symbols will vary. In bibliographical discourse there is frequent need to refer to a particular leaf or page—as a physical object—in terms of its place in the structure of a book, quite apart from any concern with what is printed

on it; but there is relatively little occasion to cite, for instance, the third edition of an author's second book as such, without intending that the reference be translated into a particular title, publisher, and date.

Nevertheless, I would not wish to deny that a standard notation for this purpose may be desirable. My only concern is that symbols not be needlessly multiplied. Some of the more elaborate possibilities derived from these proposed systems, like the one cited earlier tending toward the specification of an individual copy, lead one to anticipate an eventual row of symbols beginning with a Library of Congress classification number (and perhaps an International Standard Book Number), followed in turn by a number of the Abbott or West type (including symbols for states of sheets and binding variants), a signature collation, a "fingerprint" (as proposed by John Jolliffe),[58] a National Union Catalog symbol for the library holding the copy, and the call number or shelf mark of the copy. What purpose might be served by this long sequence I am not sure, though I am willing to believe there is one. But the piling up of symbols can, I think, be extended beyond the point of usefulness. A potential danger is the blurring of the distinction between reference to individual copies and reference to a scholarly description of an entire edition, impression, or issue[59] —which is to say, the distinction between an entry in a catalogue and an entry in a bibliography. Reference numbers attached to entries in a bibliography cannot be references to specific copies but must be references to accounts based on the examination of a number of copies. This central distinction can be maintained, and maintained efficiently, by a two-part plan operating within each entry: (1) a record of copies examined is placed at the end of the entry, each copy (sequentially numbered) identified by library symbol and call number or accession number, followed by an indication of defects or peculiarities that result from the post-publication history of the copy (and therefore not encompassed by the concept of ideal copy);[60] (2) any variation, among copies on which an entry is based, that results from the printing and publishing process (and is therefore encompassed within ideal copy)—such as states of a given leaf or sheet—is documented parenthetically

by the citation of the numbers assigned to the copies containing the variation in question. Whether or not one wishes to distinguish in form the references to entries from the references to copies (as in "copy 5" of "A9b"), the distinction is basic and must not be lost sight of.

We now return, by what may seem a circuitous route (but is, I believe, a necessary one), to the matter of arrangement. Entry numbering can be expected to reflect arrangement, but some kinds of numbering, when adopted as a standard and rigidly applied, can also determine arrangement. For example, I have heard people refer in a general sense to "A items" and "B items"—by which they mean books wholly written by an author and books contributed to in some way by the author. This usage, roughly reflecting a widespread (but by no means universal) bibliographical practice, in turn influences other bibliographers to set up their bibliographies in the same fashion. Although bibliographers should certainly survey the practices of their predecessors, they should not be content to have imposed on them a system of arrangement (or a system of numbering implying an arrangement) that does not emerge from the circumstances of the particular bibliography they are working on. There is not, in fact, any great uniformity in the definition of the B section, so that general allusions to "B items" are not very precise. If one uses the term simply to mean "books contributed to by the author," then one is referring to items sometimes included in the A section (e.g., books edited by the author) and others at times separated into C or D or E sections (e.g., if books containing original contributions, collected pieces, appearances, and letters are segregated). Presumably one might deplore this lack of uniformity if one could adduce an overwhelming reason for the necessity of a term like "B items." But it serves no useful purpose—any more than the presence of the "B" in dealers' citations tells one something not already stated in their descriptions. Certainly there can be no reason for such a usage that is worth the price of having to submit to a single scheme of arrangement prescribed in advance. In speaking about a particular bibliography, one might wish to refer to "B items" or "F items"; the terms would be clear in the context. But when such terms are used to refer to bibliographies in general, their function is shifted from the descriptive to the prescriptive, making reference numbering an organizing force rather than a reflection of organization.

It follows that bibliographers should feel no less bound to use "A" for a section dealing with books by an author than to use "B" for a section recording some or all of the other books with which the author was associated. One should first plan the arrangement of the bibliography and then see what numbering system would be most appropriate in

that particular instance. It could well be that one would decide to use "A" for the author's first published book, "B" for the second, and so on, with appended numbers for editions. The description of the various editions of books wholly by an author often occupies as much as two-thirds or three-fourths of the bulk of the bibliography;[61] prefixing an "A" to all the entry numbers in such a long section, as is commonly done, would seem to lengthen those numbers needlessly. Instead, one might assign letters sequentially to the succession of books, thereby saving one character in each entry number, and switch to the use of letters for whole categories of works at the point where the record of contributions to books begins. It is true that labeling the author's books "A" through "S" and then using "T" for all the books contributed to, for instance, means that letters are not used in parallel fashion throughout. But I see no disadvantage resulting from that fact. One can always use sectional divisions, like "Part I," "Part II," and so on, to mark the large units of a bibliography, without wasting spaces in the entry numbers for this purpose. Although the entry numbers throughout a bibliography must form a single sequence if they are efficiently to serve the function of reference, there is no reason why any given element in those numbers need have the same "meaning" throughout. It is only because bibliographers sometimes place the classification function ahead of the purely reference function in their numbering that they may think otherwise. But there is nothing illogical or impractical about employing different forms of numbering in different sections of a bibliography where different levels of detail are recorded;[62] one could still, if one wished, use in any particular section of a bibliography a system emphasizing classification, in which each element must consistently signify the same thing.

Devising a system of numbering that conveys some information is not necessarily a bad thing, for, as I have noted, such numbers can be useful in an index. As long as one resists the temptation to overload the numbers with informative elements—to the point where one loses sight of the primary purpose of the numbers and makes them less efficient for reference—a system that builds some meaning into the numbers can in many cases, through its mnemonic value, actually facilitate the job of reference. How much detail is too much cannot be arbitrarily stated. Let me suggest one approach that might seem appropriate in

some situations: information down to the level of impression could be expressed in three characters by using capital letters to stand for works, arabic numbers for editions, and arabic numbers following decimal points for impressions, as in "C1.2." Eliminating the traditional letter standing for the whole section of the author's own books effects a significant economy. As a result, one may feel freer to insert one more element, representing subeditions, which should be taken into account if impressions are to be specified. Subeditions could be indicated by lower case letters following the edition numbers, as in "C1b.2," clearly reflecting the fact that a subedition is a part of an edition and has its own sequence of impressions.[63] I would in most cases be reluctant to encode further information, and even these four characters would no doubt seem excessive for some bibliographies.[64] My suggestion of this scheme is in the spirit of what I have said earlier, and therefore I am not in any sense proposing it as a standard. I intend it only as an example of what one might come up with if one recognizes the folly of feeling bound to any single system previously employed and understands the distinction between reference and classification. It would obviously be inappropriate, without modification, for an author who published more than twenty or so books, since there might not be enough letters to cover those books and any additional categories that would have to be included; nor would it probably be appropriate if books contributed to by the author were treated in the same detail as books wholly by the author, since both categories should then receive the same kind of reference numbering, and again the number of letters might be insufficient. One solution in these instances, rather than the awkward doubling of letters, might be a reversal in the use of letters and numbers, letting numbers stand for books and letters for editions.[65] That solution illustrates how the reference numbering grows out of the particular situation; but I am less concerned here with the solution in a specific instance than with the process of thinking involved. One must first decide on the arrangement of the material; then one can consider whether the entries thus arranged are better referred to by a straightforward series of consecutive numbers or by a sequence of more complicated numbers that reflect in some degree the classification scheme already adopted; and if the latter approach (which is by no means an obvious choice) is selected, one can then think about the system that will best serve the function of reference and at the same time reveal some (how much is a further question) of the information conveyed by the arrangement.

The numbering of entries is clearly dependent on the arrangement of the material. And the arrangement of the material emerges from the process of thinking about the material. The question of arranging material in a bibliography is inextricably connected to the whole process of historical research and writing, to the problem of finding order in the raw material of history. The way in which results are presented is central to the meaning one has found in the historical record. I have ventured some opinions here about such matters as the ordering of impressions and issues, the degressive and segregated treatment of anthologies and periodicals, and the numbering of the resulting entries, but I regard my comments less as solutions than as examples of thinking. Writing a bibliography is not a mechanical task, and the urge to follow mindlessly a set of instructions will produce no better results in bibliography than anywhere else. The quality of a bibliography, like any other intellectual product, depends on the quality of thought that has gone into it. The arrangement of the material is a basic reflection of that thought.