BibliographyDefinition

From Library Instruction Wiki

Bibliography: A list of sources of information. This can be sources used in writing a book or article, or simply a list of sources gathered together to help researchers find material on their topic. These last sorts are usually annotated (meaning that they contain descriptions of the material and its usefulness.)

Bibiliographies were originally lists of books and articles. (Biblio: book and graphy: writing.) As technology has changed, they now include books, articles, websites, CDs and other audio records, archival collections, newspaper articles, and probably other things.

The purpose of a bibliography is to help the reader find the material! Entries such as "New York Times" serve no purpose. A good entry will have the information a seeker needs to retrieve the book, article, or what have you from whatever depository holds the material.

There are numerous styles for creating a bibliography. Major ones include MLA (Modern Language Association); Chicago (Associated with the University of Chicago, and the former secretary of the graduate school, Kate Turabian.); and APA (American Psychological Association.)

APA should be avoided whenever possible, as it is a style that makes it difficult to retrieve the material. In addition to being hard to read, (it generally uses lower case letters), APA also eliminates the first name of authors in favor of initials. So if the reader wants to find other articles by someone named Tammy Smith, they can only search under "Smith, T" bringing up Toms, Tammys, Teresas...

Bibliographies are hard for students, and time should be given to teaching them, because of the stress and anxiety students associate with them.

Tony Greiner Portland Community College