After reading the main texts along with the further readings, I have come to the conclusion that I never really knew what the definitions were of bibliography, bibliographers, bibliographical and such. The only thing that I ever knew about bibliography was the Enumerative bibliography and even so, I never knew that exact term until the readings for this week. Using bibliography as a means to record the history of a text beyond its text form is something I would have never thought of considering that I had only known about enumerative which is a type of bibliography that doesn’t make its entire focus on the physical form of a book.
Looking more into the physical aspect of the book can teach us and also allow us to record things about culture, perceived meanings, and the transformation of the book during the time period it had existed in or rather created. McKenzie speaks on this topic about how a bibliography goes beyond the text itself and focuses on the physical aspects of the book and how a society affected its physical form.
“Beyond that, it allows us to describe not only the technical but the social processes of their transmission. In those quite specific ways, it accounts for non-book texts, their physical forms, textual versions, technical transmission, institutional control, their perceived meanings, and social effects.”(McKenzie 12-13)
The way McKenzie describes how a bibliography is made me remember the class discussion we had on Thursday talking about how the printing press was able to be controlled by institutions and how it shifted social processes which lead us to learning the history about how we must be wary of the information that we received no matter what. Bibliography to my understanding from McKenzie shows me that it tries to capture everything about a text’s physical form that is being studied and recorded for in which we will ultimately learn more meanings behind it and its social effects.
My biggest takeaway of everything about bibliography now is that a book is much more important than its text and that its physical form has so many meanings, implication and thought put behind it and that it shouldn’t be severely overlooked. It honestly shocks me now that I realize how many people including myself were never really taught how to read into a physical book’s history and honestly, it was never mentioned at all in my times during school until now.
So glad to see your recognition of the importance of this largely-forgotten/invisible but vital field of study: “After reading the main texts along with the further readings, I have come to the conclusion that I never really knew what the definitions were of bibliography, bibliographers, bibliographical and such. ” Let’s discuss what bibliography has to offer us and perhaps, even, why it might not be taught anymore…
Hey Mario, I like how you connected McKenzie’s idea of bibliography to the class discussion about institutions and the printing press. It shows that bibliography isn’t just about cataloging books but about tracing the whole network around them. I also related to what you said about not being taught to look at the physical side of books before. For me too, a book was always just its text, but now I see how much you can learn from the paper, binding, or even how it was distributed.
Hi Mario, I think many of us came to a similar conclusion about bibliographies. We simply didn’t know about the other ways the term was used, because we were never taught it. I’ve come to realize the importance of the book as an object as well. I read online constantly, so the physical book has become less and less important to me as a reader. Sure, some books were beautiful and I understood the value of owning physical media, but it wasn’t until this semester that I began thinking deeper about it. And honestly, it’s surprising. I also feel that this is something that should be taught more in grade school. Even if it’s just surface level. Why isn’t book history a well known area of study despite the importance of books?