Bibliography

Bibliography is a systematic description and history of books, their authorship, publication, editions (Oxford English Dictionary). It is a list of books of a particular author, printer or country, or those dealing with any particular theme, i.e. the literature of a subject. Bibliography is the study of books as material objects, irrespective of their contents. A bibliography may include a detailed description of the books themselves and in this sense the bibliographer requires a knowledge not only of the history of typography but also of book-binding and paper making. A bibliography may be an author bibliography, descriptive bibliography, textual bibliography, analytical bibliography, critical bibliography and bibliography of bibliographies.

A bibliography covers title pages, including ornaments and borders, imprints, colophons implicits and explicits, binding and casting preliminaries, imprimaturs, advertisements, texts and collation, prefaces, dedications, etc.

Collation paragraph has full standard description, short, medium and full standard descriptions are accepted as the normal types of entry.

Bibliographies further cover maps, illustrations, songs and gramophone records and thematic catalogue.