Foundations of a Theory of Bibliography

T HE fundamental problem underlying any consideration of a program of bibliographic research or development arises in the conflict between two opposing points of view. On the one side are those who would use the "macrocosmic" method, who would view bibliography as one of the instrumentalities of communication and communication itself as an instrumentality of social organization and action. On the opposing side are those who look upon each bibliography as a separate tool, fashioned to meet the specific needs of a limited number of persons with more or less common interests, each separate bibliography having little or no acknowledged relationship to any other. This is the "microcosmic" point of view, bringing under observation only a small segment of the total flow of communication. The hodgepodge of bibliographic services available today to scholars and research workers in various fields is the result of "microcosmic" thinking. It is as though each of our railroads had been established by a small separate group, each running around and around its own little circuit, exchanging the produce of the local inhabitants within its own area, but with no junction point to connect it with other similar circuits and with no over-all plan to facilitate general exchange at national or international levels. Bibliography is, or should be, a carrier system for ideas and information analogous to a well-articulated railroad system for the transportation of physical commodities. Many learned and professional groups have recently voiced dissatisfaction with the services that they themselves have developed, while other groups have been clamoring for new services. Though there is no denying the urgency or the legitimacy of such demands, the continuation of such fragmentation will focus attention at the wrong places and will impede progress in developing a unified and completely articulated bibliographic system. At this time it is imperative to attack the problem as a whole rather than to limit attention to the separate requirements of single groups. Continuing separatism in bibliography is economically wasteful and intellectually frustrating, for such proliferation results only in a Rube-Goldbergian mechanism so intricate and so cumbersome that it is in danger of falling of its own weight. More important, it is possibly disintegrative to society as a whole, in that it may contribute to excessive cultural or developmental maladjustments. Bibliography must be looked upon as being, in effect, the roadbed over which the units of graphic communication move among the various parts of society as they make their contribution to the shaping of societal structure, policy, and action. As Crane Brinton has said: