Reference, in its relation to literature, to bibliography, to subject-indexes and to systems of classification / by Archibald L. Clarke.

  • Clarke, Archibald Leycester.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Reference, in its relation to literature, to bibliography, to subject-indexes and to systems of classification / by Archibald L. Clarke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ture”1 supplies a working guide of inestimable value to the user of any large reference library. The subject entries, relat- ing as they do to almost every fact and opinion treated of by leading writers past and present comprised in the purview of the index, possess as their brief agent of reference, the short sub-headings. In the example appended at the end the sub- ject-matter of reference will be seen to be “ Progress ”. The first set of authors are assumed to deal with progress generally. The subsequent authors deal with progress under some special aspect, Progress, age of, Progress and poverty, Progress, need of. The words italicized become the brief agent of reference, and the authors’ names, brief titles, etc., which follow are the signs of reference, as will be shown sub- sequently. The well-known “ Poole’s Index ” is compiled on very much the same principle. (/) Bibliographies and Lists of References to a Subject.— The advantage of the complete or nearly complete setting out of titles under subject-headings in subject and classified catalogues has already been pointed out. So long as these books are rightly grouped their titles prove true and reliable agents of reference. They may not be a complete set of hooks on a particular subject or comprehended within a given class, but at least they accurately reflect whatever the library contains on that subject or within that class. These lists thus become definite bibliographies. But now let us view the question of bibliography from another standpoint. Save for the intensely practical person who is so sure of himself that he feels an appeal to authority needless so far as he is concerned, or for the author who is really “first in the field ” and has found his search for corro- borative experience negative, most writers of monographs in all branches of knowledge, either give references in footnotes or append a “ bibliography ” to their contributions, or they sometimes do both. Placing the bibliography at the end, however, constitutes the form most in fashion at the present day, though it was in use before the middle of the last cen- 1 Fletcher (W. I.). “Index to General Literature” (issued by the Publish- ing Board of the A.L.A.). 4to, Boston and New York, 1901.