Bibliographic Initiation

Posted October 21, 2025 by Will Romey

“Students may have to wait until they enter a program in library and information studies, or perhaps do graduate work in literature, to be introduced to the third point on the book-history triangle, the discipline whose concern is with the book as a material object. Even then only a fortunate few will encounter the study of bibliography, where the emphasis is on the preservation and transmission of written texts”.

-Howsam, Old Books and New Histories

Bibliography was not a field I expected to grab me. I’ve been a book lover since before I could read, and can’t walk past a free book pile without at least a quick rifling through. But after a few readings assigned in LIS 449 (“Rare Books and Special Collections Librarianship”), I have been bitten by the bibliographic bug.

Zooming out from an individual work and to analysis of publication, printing, and editing puts the transmission of written text into focus. Bibliography’s broad analysis of the book as a physical object comes with a toolbox of theory and technique to explore the history of the written word.

It’s been an interesting exercise to think about other fields with this lens. While reading a book
on ancient Egyptian wine production (King Tut’s Wine Cellar, Lesko 1977) I was struck by the inscriptions on the clay jars of wine King Tutankhamen was buried with:

● “Year 4 [of Tut’s reign]. Wine of the House-of-Aton, L.P.H., of the Western River. Chief vintner Nen.
● Year 5. Wine of the House-of-Tutankhamon-Ruler-of-the-Southern-On in the Western River. Chief vintner Kha’y.
● Year 9. Wine of the House-of-Aton on the Western River. Chief vintner Nebnufe”

This is about as much information as you’d see on a modern bottle of Bordeaux (a little more, even – vintner isn’t typically listed). This descriptive wine metadata somewhat corresponds to bibliography – we’ve got information about the production, storage, author, and transmission of these jars. Without delving into the contents themselves (in this case, the wine) we can learn about the history, production, and even consumption. This strikes me as analogous to how bibliography can inform literary and historical scholarship by close scrutiny of books as material objects.

Ultimately, an exciting part of my graduate school experience has been the way academic readings shed light onto seemingly unrelated interests. Digging deeper into previously unexplored fields makes connections between unexpected areas of knowledge. So far, my SLIS experience has been focused on how to think like an information professional – how to use intellectual tools to solve problems and make sense of convoluted data sets.