Thinking about this week’s library question (which is much less straightforward, I guarantee, than those to come), I’m reminded of the elasticity of the term “bibliography.” It literally means “writing about books,” but that definition would cover a great many publications, wouldn’t it?
The Internet, as is often the case, confuses things for us even more, because an innocent search with the term “bibliography” would surely yield more results than all the grain in Kansas. Everything, or most everything that’s credible, has a bibliography attached to it.
But only certain types of reference tools are bibliographies — things we’d use to find out about the state of academic criticism and scholarship on Poe, as your question bids you do.
In class on Tuesday we’ll talk about types of bibliographies. For this assignment, see how many different types you find.
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