A View of Historical Bibliography: Reference Value of 17th- and 18th-Century Periodical Bibliographies
Paul E. Vesenyi · 2016
Scarcity and diversity are still with us, but accessibility of early literature has been dramatically improved in last two decades or so. This is due to extended in-library microfilming services and mechan ized interlibrary cooperations which are rap idly developing here and abroad. Any person who talks about periodicals, even with highest competency, can be embarrassed by question: What is a peri odical? question is even more intricate if we put it in past: What was a periodical, particularly in seventeenth and eighteenth century? There is a gamut of definitions available, from Oxford English Diction ary to ALA's Glossary of Library Terms. But alas, all are vulnerable, no matter if they be long to past or present. I wish to call attention, however, to two explanations which refer specifically to sev enteenthand eighteenth-century periodicals. was formulated in 1734; other in 1928. two have one common factor, which is never used in today's definitions of peri odicals. first was made by Denis Francois Camusat, who lived in a time when term the periodical or in French, le periodique, was not yet in use. In his fine work Histoire Critique des Journeaux, published in 1734, he made this formulation for all journals France et d'ailleur: One means by word journal a peri odical work which appears regularly on a fixed date announcing new, or reprinted books, gives an idea about their content and serves to conserve achievements of sci ence; in other words a work in which one collects chronologically all that happened in Republic of Letters.1 Almost two hundred years later, in 1928, Joachim Kirchner in his Grundlagen des Deutschen Zeitschriftenwesens offers a more elaborate formula: The of 17th and 18th century is a publication, re produced through mechanical means, with in tention of unlimited duration, appearing in more or less regular intervals, for a gen erally limited subject field, of which indi vidual issues, or periodically issued parts can be recognized as to belonging to one en tity, and which within their special field, or scientific area are aiming to a variety of con tents.2