The arrival of a new century seems to have prompted reevaluation and reflection in many areas, including the realm of encyclopedias and dictionaries whose aim is to present the state of knowledge in a particular field. Several new and newly revised works have appeared for pedagogy; this review focuses on the 15th edition of the Wörterbuch der Pädagogik (WdP), edited by Winfried Böhm, and the Wörterbuch Pädagogik (WP), edited by Horst Schaub and Karl Zenke.

The latest edition of the WdP aims to present a comprehensive and qualitative overview of the classical science of education, teaching, and instructional methods. This expanded edition has grown out of its pocketbook past and includes over 2,500 articles and sections dealing with prominent figures in pedagogy and the school systems in the German states and other nations. The fourth edition of the WP, formerly titled the Wörterbuch zur Pädagogik, also offers a broad view of the extensive field of education and its applications.

This edition of the WdP includes new terms and articles dealing with political concepts and the former East Germany. Special areas of emphasis are individual school subjects, pedagogy in Southern Europe, and Christian education. In contrast, the WP displays a more "applied" emphasis, with an interest in recent developments in instruction and classroom techniques and teacher career development. Bibliographies accompany many articles in both works; the citations in WdP are distinguished by their international scope and historical breadth, whereas those in WP are more up-to-date and include forthcoming titles. The biographical entries in the WdP are exemplary in their number and scope. The WP contains fewer and less extensive biographies than the WdP, but there are more entries for living, practicing teachers in Germany.

The WdP is geared toward the reader with interests in the international, historical, and philosophical dimensions of the science of education, whereas the WP provides more information about instruction, classroom methods, and career development. Both works have distinctive strong points and accordingly some weak points, but can be viewed as successful and recommended as partial evaluations of an entire field. [rfr/ldb]

 

It is a pity when compilers of a bibliography have great enthusiasm and competence for their subject but fail to consult experts in the field of bibliography compilation. The title at hand is the result of such an approach. The work consists of two parts: the first part (entries 1 to 1,183) reproduces a bibliography covering 1870 to 1970 compiled by Hildburg Bethke in 1971; the second part (entries 1,184 to 2,407) is a supplement for the period 1971 to 1999 that is the responsibility of the compilers named above. The 1971 compiler is not named on the title page, which scholarly honesty would have demanded, yet her bibliographic work is careful and precise. The criticism here thus applies only to the second part. The compilers call this a "building block" of German-language titles for an international Comenius bibliography yet to appear. In reality, foreign-language titles are mixed in with the German ones. The total of 2,407 entries is artificially inflated, since often a collection of essays is reintroduced for each relevant essay. The electronic listings are not at all explored; information from databases, online catalogs, and such is missing. The organization of title lists is a bibliographic Wild West: sometimes publishers are given, sometimes not; place of publication, issue number, full title are sometimes listed for journal articles, but often not. Indexes to persons and titles are likewise inconsistent and unreliable, e.g., secondary literature under the primary literature heading or abbreviations that vary from one usage to the next. Close proofreading seems not to have occurred. In sum, this is one of those reference works that falls under the category "better than nothing." A great pedagogue like Comenius deserves a true bibliographic building block, not this stone quarry. [us/rdh]

 

The documents cataloged in this work are single-page prints, often richly illustrated, announcing the award of masters and doctoral degrees, a graphical tradition that developed in the Catholic universities of southern Germany and Austria. The catalog provides photographs of each document, along with a bibliographic-iconographic description, references to additional sources, and holdings information.

The publication is completed by a concordance of the masters and doctoral documents; indexes that provide access to the contents via chronology, iconographic motif, artists, printers, and members of the examining committee; and an overview of the distribution of baccalaureate and masters degrees. Of interest to both art and university historians, this work is a significant addition to the literature in this area. See also the works of Sibylle Appuhn-Radtke and Werner Telesko listed in the bibliography and Die alten Hochschulschriften: lästige Massenware oder ungehobene Schätze unserer Bibliotheken? [Old Academic Theses: Burdensome Mass Product or Disregarded Treasures of our Libraries?] (see IFB 97-1/2-232). Note also Die Matrikel der Akademie und Universität Bamberg [The Enrollment Registers of the Academy and University of Bamberg] (Bamberg; Aschaffenburg, 1923/1924), Geschichte der gelehrten Schulen im Hochstift Bamberg von 1007-1803 [History of the Academic Schools in the Seminary of Bamberg] (Bamberg, 1880/1881), and an as yet unpublished index of old Bamberg dissertations and theses edited by Werner Taegert. [mk/ab]

 

The University of Bologna was particularly attractive to German law students during the Middle Ages, into the second half of the 14th century, because of its excellent reputation in law and the lack of sufficient universities in the old empire. The first volume of this work investigates the German student body in Bologna with respect to their geographical and social background, the organization of their studies in Bologna, and their subsequent careers. The second volume is an extensive biographical directory of 3,601 German law students from 1265-1425, of which 40 remain anonymous.

The work draws on solid sources, such as the 100-year-old Deutsche Studenten in Bologna 1289-1562 by the famous university historian Gustav Knod, itself based in part on the Acta Nationis Germanicae Universitatis Bononiensis. Other sources considered were the university's promotions registry and the comprehensive city registry, the Memoralia communis, whose start date of 1265 determined the start date for this work.

The particularly important biographical directory (volume 2) is intended to complement rather than replace Knod's work. An 18-page concordance unites the personal documentation from both works. Each numbered entry includes the name and personal dates of the person, time spent, and studies taken in Bologna, Knod's number, possible relation with other covered persons, background, family, studies elsewhere, academic title, further education, and later work and/or writings. The resulting very rich biographical resource is an important contribution to the inventory of German students in the Middle Ages, and a nice supplement to the Biographisches Repertorium der Juristen im Alten Reich [Biographical Repertory of Attorneys in the Old Empire] (covering the 16th-18th centuries), which unfortunately stopped at "E." A continuation past 1425, perhaps even beyond Knod's ending year of 1562, would be welcome. [mk/mm]