A History of Bibliographies of Bibliographies

ks Entitled

only about a century. The word bibliotheca, which often appears in titles, has such more or less bibliographical meanings as bibliography, subject index, catalogue of a public or private library, and collection of materials dealing with a particular subject. Consequently, a list of books entitled bibliotheca has much in common with

some titles seem to have been made up and others refer to books that were never printed. Labbé uses the term bibliotheca so loosely that we do not always know whether he is referring to a library and its catalogue (for example, Bibliotheca Augustana may mean th

ana,[95] Floriacensis,[96] Ingolstadiensis,[97] etc.: (2) bibliothecae named for persons (vel a personis): Borromaea,[98] Bodleiana,[99] Thuana,[100] etc.; (3) bibliothecae named for rulers (vel a principibus): Regia Gallica,[101] Caesarea,[102] Bavarica,[103] etc.; (4) bibliothecae named for religious orders (vel a Ordinibus Sacris): Augustiniana

a of listing bibliothecae.[112] In this book a special section or appendix labelled "A List of Authors Who Have Written Books Entitled 'Bibliotheca' and Books about Libraries (Series Authorum qui Bibliothecas & de Bibliothecis scripserunt)" names books called bibliotheca, catalogues of libraries, and treatises on library science. The selection is obviously even more definitely bibliog

), which he also enters under the name of the compiler, Elias Ehinger, librarian at Augsburg. He cites the Bibliothèque universelle, a critical journal edited by Jean Leclerc, because the title contains the

ew autobibliographies, for example, those written by such librarians and bibliographers as Peter Lambeck (Lambecius) and Philip Labbé. The most surprising title that the compiler names is "Joan. Brunderii [sic] index librorum MS quae in Bibliothecis Belgicis extant."[117] This union catalogue of manuscripts owned in the Low Countries was made by the Belgian Dominican Johannes Bunderius or Bunderus (b. 1481 or 1482, d. 1557). Down to 1666 it is mentioned occasionally by men who had consulted it, but our au

ary at Leyden to 1591 instead of 1595 (this error is probably a slip of the pen) and mentions the famous ghosts announced by Jodocus a Dudinck. He credits the Philobiblon to both Richard de Bury and Richa

deals with it generously, when he says (p. 79) that it is worth a glance and can then be forgotten. Although he seems to be unaware of any predecessor, Unger's idea was not novel. His execution of the idea leaves much to be desired. Since his list contains few, if

orum; and Louis Ellies DuPin, Bibliothèque universelle des historiens. "And these are the books entitled Universal Library or: Bibliography." His comments contain some information but do not on the whole show much familiarity with the books. For example, the remarks on K?nig's late seventeenth-century biobibliographical dictionary are lifted from D. G. Morhof, Polyhistor. He points out that the subtitle of Latinius's Bibliotheca gives a good idea of its contents: "Observationes, correctiones et variae lectiones in sacros et profanos scriptores, ex marginalibus n

bliotheca juridica, "which was published at Frankfurt in 1607 as a folio and was enlarged by F. G. Struve in 1720." This is not a good start, for the first date is wrong (it should be 1679) and he would have found five more legal bibliographies entitled bibliotheca by opening Lipenius. In this category he cites nine more titles, counting three works by Caspar Thurmann as one book. This combination is not particularly objectionable. Thurmann had made a classified legal bibliograp

e Jugemens des savans (1685-1686) and a long summary of a prospectus of a philosophical dictionary that Baillet planned but never published. More entries follow in an alphabetical order according to proper names or adjectives derived from proper names or the subject matter. Laurentius de Cremona, Bibliotheca aethiopica is entered under "Aethiopica," and Albert Bartholin, Liber de scriptis Danorum under "Alberti." It is difficult to discover the plan of arrangement, and equally difficult to see the reasons for choosing the books. The presence of more than twenty entries entitled "Bibliotheca Biblica" is not surprising, but eleven botanical bibliographies and twelve pages summarizing the Linnean classification seem an unnecessarily generous allotment to that subject. A few pages later San José cites collective works-not bibli

ome bibliographical sense, but the lack of a clear plan of selection and organization makes the book unusable. In a hodgepodge of seven hundred and fifty titles-I take the figure from Besterman-Durey de Noinville may list a book according to its author or its subject without any apparent reason for his choice of either method. His knowledge of available bibliographies is entirely inadequate. The accounts of reference books dealing with Belgium, church history and France are scanty,[121

bibliography of bibliographies or a guide to reference works. Durey de Noinville's disorderly book was not good enough to suggest making anything better. All these writers w