Abstract
This paper reviews Chinese bibliographical studies in modern China.
Chapter 1 deals with bibliographies before the foundation of the People's Republic of China. In this period, there were three main trends. The first was that of the Chinese classical bibliographers who considered it the most important function of bibliography “to make clear the outline of sciences and the origin of each science”. The second was that of the so-called librarian bibliographers who insisted on the necessity of a new bibliography based on European librarianship and bibliography. The third was that of the eclectic bibliographers who adopted European librarianship and bibliography while keeping the traditions of classical Chinese bibliography as a basis and tried to develop a new system of Chinese bibliography. In this chapter representative views of each school are introduced.
Since the latter half of the 1950's, there have risen disputations on the research object of Chinese bibliography. In chapter 2 we review these disputations which took place before the Cultural Revolution.
