Some Problems in the Bibliographical Organization of Belles-Lettres and Related Secondary Works

THE cuRRENT EFFORTS of Professors Lewis Sawin and Charles N ilon of the U niversity of Colorado to launch an "integrated bibliography" of English studies are, or should be, of great interest not only to researchers but also to catalogers and reference librarians who specialize in literature. 1 The effect of such a bibliography would be to simplify searches by bringing together (and organizing for retrievability) citations of all the items now listed in the innumerable bibliographies, large and small, which a student of English must scan in order to compile an exhaustive bibliography. It is possible that such a work would some day render superfluous certain reference tools now considered indispensable. Eventually, too, si:r;nilar projects might be undertaken for French studies, German studies, and the like; or, in view of the overlapping of disciplines, the integrated bibliography could be expanded to include all languages and literatures. It is also conceivable that a tool might be created which would yield copies of desired documents and not merely the citations of them. Be all that as it may, students of literature must now (and surely will, for some time to come) consult a variety of aidsbibliographies, catalogs, and classification schemes. Their work, rendered difli-