History of Chinese Bibliography -- Century Library

Author: Yao Mingda
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-04-01
Features: This book is the first academic work named History of Chinese Bibliography since modern times, providing a comprehensive and systematic study of the development of Chinese bibliography. It is a must-read reference for understanding and researching the history of Chinese bibliography. Written by the author between 1935 and 1936, it was first published in 1936. When reprinted in 1957, it included a postscript by Wang Chongmin, which corrected the original text and supplemented and explained several issues. The author believed that "the spirit of the times has little special difference" in the history of Chinese bibliography. Therefore, the book does not arrange its content by era but instead divides it into sections such as Introduction, Origin, Classification, Constitution, Collation, Historical Bibliography, Religious Bibliography, Specialized Bibliography, Special Bibliography, and Conclusion. It "connects the past and present and describes directly, making the origins and developments complete and clear at a glance," thoroughly elaborating on the emergence and development of Chinese bibliography and summarizing the changes in Chinese bibliography after the introduction of Western book classification and cataloging theories in the 1930s. The book is permeated with the author's bibliographic views, which hold that bibliography is a specialized academic discipline that "organizes books into categories, distinguishes similarities and differences, explains major principles, clarifies logical relationships, aims to distinguish academic fields, examine sources, and allow people to seek books by categories and study through books." In the conclusion, the author points out that the characteristics of ancient Chinese bibliography were to emphasize classification over cataloging, stress writing prefaces while neglecting the compilation of indexes. He advocates for unified classification and the compilation of subject catalogs, making the method of finding books easy to learn and use, and promoting bibliography as common knowledge for everyone. The book is rich in historical materials and offers unique insights, making it an influential academic monograph.