Bibliography in Literature, Folklore, Language and Linguistics

Book excerpt: While the academic world devoted to literary study has been absorbed with new and distinct forms of literary criticism, bibliography has received scant attention--much less than in former times when it was understood as more than just an aid to research. Enormous changes have taken place in enumerative bibliography over the past thirty years, especially with the widespread use of computers, but these changes have gone unrecognized as bibliography has gone unappreciated. This work is a collection of essays concentrating exclusively on bibliography and its uses in the academic world, especially in literature, folklore, language, and linguistics. The book begins with a discussion of what bibliography is, what it does, and how to create the optimum bibliography. Other subjects include bibliography and postcolonialism, critical theory and bibliography in cross-disciplinary environments, issues and problems with tools for feminist and women's studies scholars in literature, strategies for the incorporation of pluridisciplinary work, bibliographical databases and databased bibliographies, and ideas for the future of the MLA International Bibliography.