The interest in this science has never been so widespread and so systematically active as in recent years. In all the leading countries of the world we now find bibliographical so cieties; and their publications, as well as the periodicals devoted to book and library ques tions, or giving to these matters special promi nence, bear testimony to a general and genuine public interest in the subject. "As to tfie practical value of a knowledge of bibliog raphy,' Mr. Feipel says, °there can indeed be little room for doubt"; and he quotes from the J. D. Brown 'Manual) as follows: "In every possible avenue of research or inquiry, bibliography plays an important part. An ac guaintanoe with bibliographical writings, con joined with access to the best examples, is a kind of master-key which will unlock the stores of lcnowledge of all ages, and, when used with intelligence, has the power of open ing up sources of information which might otherwise be unsuspected or negletted.' When we realize that bibliography assists the student to such an extent, we must also realize drat to the librarian, who is consulted by all sorts of students in regard to the actual or possible provision of books, it is wholly indispensable.
The etymology of the word may afford some explanation of a tendency, observed in certain quarters, to revert, little by little, to the older meaning of flfiXioypa#Ea which, in post-classical Greek, was used, says Mr. Feipel, "to mean the writing of books; and, as late as 1761, in Fenning's
Diction ary,' a bibliographer is defined as
bibliography serves as an indispensable me dium of exchange of books between bookseller and book buyer, and works of the class last mentioned, the inventorial, are prepared by or for the owners of books, manuscripts, etc., for the sake of registering such possessions as may be called literary, in the widest sense of that word. The aims of those who are especially active in the field of historical bibliography may be summarized as follows: (1) tracing the origin of books, (2) describing their form and contents, (3) recording the events connected with their "careers,' so to speak. In other words, historical bibliography deals with books in a manner resembling that in which history deals with nations or biog raphy and genealogy deal with persons. °When properly executed, historical bibliog raphy not only supplies information about various books but also reflects the state of civilization of the eras to which the books belong'— its material comprising both primary and secondary sources. "Primary sources con stitute the bulk of contemporary historical bibliography, while the secondary sources con stitute the great body of antiquarian book knowledge— a subdivision that will be the theme of the next paragraph. "The primary sources are to be found in the private and public documents of the persons and institu tions concerned in the production of books. They comprise journals and correspondence of authors and their friends, and subsequently the correspondence and documents exchanged between authors and publishers. Then follow, if the book is published, advertisements and announcements, including those carried by the book itself and such as appear elsewhere. These are finally supplemented by reviews and news items in the journals of the day. If the book continues to live in the minds of the people for any length of time, contemporary records of the book are apt to multiply in definitely, and bibl:ographical lore is corre spondingly increased. The aggregate of the foregoing constitutes the storehouse from which succeeding ages must derive their bib liographical information, and without which antiquarian bibliography would be an im possibility.' Now, the aim of those literary workers who devote themselves to antiquarian bibliography is to construct authoritative descriptions and accounts of the books of former times; and here the varieties are found to range from ex tensive histories of the literature of a nation to a brief paragraph throwing additional light on a single book or on a single phase of its his tory. The essential features of this kind of bibliography are (1) the comparative antiq uity of the book or books concerning which information is being imparted, and (2) the fact that this information is derived from ac knowledged authoritative sources.