1999

AB -- Bibliographies and Catalogs

From the start BB was arranged by subjects, which were further subdivided by subtopics. Beginning with volume 12 (1970) the arrangement changed to eighteen subject groups in alphabetical order. The arrangement remained the same from then on except for the last two volumes (1986-1987), which were divided into sixty-five subject groups. IBB uses the eighteen subject groups found in volumes 12 through 27 of BB. One positive aspect of IBB is that it lists all volumes of serial bibliographies under the parent title, thus consolidating and reducing the total number of entries (as compared to BB). However, these listings are not always complete.

The arrangement and presentation of entries leave much to be desired. The result is that the cumulation is not easy to use and not as useful as it could have been. There is a pervasive lack of further subdivision of subjects which makes it almost impossible to find desired titles. For example, in volume 2, section 4.5, 3,802 titles are listed alphabetically under the heading "Europa." Certain subsections could have been consolidated; other sections contain titles that should have been listed elsewhere. Especially section 1.10 (Bio-bibliographies) would have benefited from much more clean-up work.

In summary, IBB falls far short of providing a useful cumulation of BB. This bibliography is a disappointment and does not come close to the standards set by Besterman. [sh/ba]
 

Sigrid Krämer's bibliography provides not only a list of Bischoff's works but, more importantly, serves as an index to all of the manuscripts cited in Bischoff's writings, including information about provenance and location of the original as well as an exact citation to Bischoff's discussion of the manuscript. (Manuscripts covered by the other two publications reviewed here are not included in this bibliography.)

The Handschriftenarchiv Bernard Bischoff, presented in the prestigious Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Hilfsmittel series, brings to the scholarly researcher a significant portion of Bischoff's legacy in a microfiche edition. This work consists of approximately 15,000 annotations concerning manuscripts in libraries from around Europe, collected by Bischoff in many bibliographical journeys beginning in the 1930s, and here ordered for publication into country/region, place, and library. An accompanying volume provides further indexing. The descriptions range from excerpts of manuscript inventories and printed catalogs to extensive notices and transcriptions from the manuscripts themselves. However, since Bischoff's own observations are not easily distinguishable from those published elsewhere, the value of this microfiche publication seems questionable. It was, perhaps, more a wish to honor a distinguished scholar than scholarly necessity that caused the editor to decide to bring out materials never intended for publication.

Until now, Bischoff's 1979 Paleographie, which has been translated into English, French, and Italian, has served as his crowning achievement, but in the future scholars will mention his Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts in the same breath. His original intent was to cover all manuscripts produced in the ninth century in Carolingian minuscule and in the Beneventana scripts from France, Germany, and Italy, as well as those from the Anglo-Saxon and Irish traditions. At Bischoff's death this undertaking remained incomplete; in fact, it is probably not capable of completion. By 1991, he estimated some 7,000 items would need to be included. Because of the volume of material, Bischoff concentrated on dating and localizing these manuscripts as precisely as possible, using paleographic analysis to identify the products of specific scriptoria or regions. His aim was to create a paleographic catalog, and not, as the title chosen by the editors suggests, a broadly descriptive scholarly catalog.

The first volume of work was prepared for publication by Birgit Ebersperger of the Bavarian Academy of Science, based on page proofs edited by Bischoff before he died; some portions remain more thorough and complete than others. Although Bischoff's work on this volume was the most advanced, it remains unfinished and lacks needed illustrations and photographs. Nonetheless, this work will provide for the foreseeable future the standard of canonical authority for manuscripts of the eighth and ninth centuries, an important period in the development of European culture. [bm/baw]
 

The manuscripts described here came to the collections of the Bavarian State Library largely as a result of the secularization movement of the early nineteenth century. For the most part, though not exclusively, they stem from Bavaria and eastern Swabia. Materials included form a spectrum ranging from the oldest surviving German paper codex to one of the most famous manuscripts of the Middle Ages, the Carmina Burana, whose origin the author convincingly places in Carinthia. In addition to exhaustive descriptions of the manuscripts which, taken together, provide an excellent overview of German book production in the thirteenth century, the text volume contains indexes of catalog numbers, previous owners, personal names, places, and subjects, along with indexes of decorative elements and iconography. The 292 manuscripts and fragments analyzed by the author are documented with over 700 illustrations in a separate volume, which greatly facilitates use.

This work is the masterful result of extensive research involving questions of paleography, provenance, language, and art-historical significance. It opens new avenues for scholarly inquiry into the illuminated book in Germany. [bm/baw]
 

The microfiche edition of the original materials, along with the catalog and indexes, is the result of work begun in 1989 to provide, along with careful microreproduction, complete descriptive bibliographical information for all the Palatine volumes with the exception of some which have found their way into other collections, which have been lost, or which for some reason could not be filmed. Included are incunabula as well as printed works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Entries in the catalog volumes (volumes 1-2) include author, title, place of publication, printer/publisher, year of printing, number of leaves/pages, and original catalog number, along with additional information and microfiche number. Volumes 3-4 comprise an index of catalog numbers, index to the microfiche, a chronological index, index of all personal names included in the entries, an index of printers/publishers with their works, and an index of places of publication. Included are more than 12,000 catalog entries, the majority from the sixteenth century. The complete work, including covers and markings, for all existing copies and editions, has been filmed--an important feature for a collection of this kind. Unfortunately, no information is provided with regard to provenances.

With this project, a great collection has been recovered and made available for scholarship. [kp/baw]
 

The second, bibliographical, section of the work includes an alphabetical list of "Books On and For Women," and four short-title lists: "Women Writers," "Books with Music by Women," "Books Illustrated by Women," and "Women in the Book Business." Concluding this section is an unannotated checklist of secondary literature covering some 1,200 entries.

This is a useful bibliographical guide for those with an interest in gender studies. [kp/baw]
 

The VaM, which began life in a 1976/77 issue of Informations-Dienst zur Verbreitung unterbliebener Nachrichten [Information Service for the Publication of Suppressed News] and went through several title changes as a separate publication, provides directory information and--where possible--publication history for the periodicals it covers. The latest edition (also available in several electronic versions) covers over 2,000 titles that appeared between 1993 and 1997. (Earlier editions are slated for inclusion in an Internet database.) Criteria for coverage have remained relatively constant over time; in general, "bourgeois," commercial, institutional, and political party publications are excluded. Numerous exceptions to these exclusions can be found, however, especially with regard to periodicals from socialist and "green" party organizations. Publications from several countries are included (and are grouped by country), but the coverage emphasis is on the German alternative press. Entries include bibliographic, circulation, and acquisitions information; the CD-ROM and Internet versions add information about advertising, electronic contact, and issuing bodies, as well as subject descriptors.

The CD-ROM carrying the latest editions of VdlB and VaM also covers gray literature held in the archives of the Internationales Institut für Sozialgeschichte [International Institute for Social History]. Keyword/Boolean searching is possible, but not field-based access (help screen claims to the contrary). The same access, however, with more up-to-date coverage, is available at no cost on the Internet at <http://www.iisg.nl/~id. [sah/gw]
 

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