Host: Japan Society of Information and Knowledge
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : May 28, 1994
Bibliography generally means The listing of books, including the list of auther's works, the list of references to show the sources used by the auther, the collected contents of the magazines, and, in the broad sense, the personal history and the chronology and so on. The study of modern bibliography has, however, made so little progress that such a classification is ambiguous. This stagnation of the bibliography partly causes the general low understanding of it. It seems evident that the bibliography is most important in the study of literature, but in fact it is valued lowly in spite of its importance. The reason is mainly that it is not in the essencial parts of literature but in the marginal parts. In addition, it is owing to the difficulty of appreciation of it. Though it must be appreciated in the peculiar viewpoint which is different from the viewpoint of the study of literature, it is not yet made a trial.
There are three conditions of the bibliography which are the inclusiveness, the accuracy and the usefulness. The word of usefulness is not necessarily proper. It may be defined as to be easy to use or to be used by anybody in other words. In this point, you may replace it with the commonality. You can add the promptness and the continuity to these three conditions above.
