
          be easy to get expert advice on rejection of certain entries or inclusion of new material.
But the editor must be a first-rate bibliographer, with a keen eye and mind alert
for every bibliographical detail essential to the knowledge of each individual book.

AUTHENTICITY

I stress the need of absolute bibliographical accuracy in connection with this literature.
for two reasons. One is the ambition for an authority in this field so final
that it may be cited as Pellechet and Hain-Copinger are cited for incunabula. My other
is very utilitarian: it is that so many of the books have no special value that there is
no object in owning many editions, or preferring one to another, when all are practically
alike or when some are plagiaries of other popular works; and yet there is need to know
just wherein their likenesses and differences consist. Although scattered information has
been printed on such points, and more is to be gleaned from internal evidence, it is desirable
to bring it all together in one bibliography.

It must be recognized that, as bibliography, only part of the task is done. What is
done, however, is exceedingly well done, while the unverified remainder is bibliographically
worthless. After all the labor that has been spent on authoritative entries for
works that are fully cataloged, it would be an incredible blunder to include titles from
other and often inaccurate sources among those of works actually examined by the bibliographers.
The high standard of accuracy that has been set by work already done constitutes
an obligation to secure a like degree of accuracy in the other entries.

On the basis of samplings from different portions of the list it is estimated that
about 75% of the titles are located in libraries, and of course some of them are widely
distributed. But many of the works located have defective entries, and must be examined.
I estimate that perhaps 60% of our titles are entirely satisfactory, being based on authentic
copies and reliable cataloging. These are chiefly from the great collection of the
U. S. Department of Agriculture and that of the Library of Congress, which partly supplements
and partly duplicates the former, especially in English books. They also include
several hundreds of works not in Washington, which were personally cataloged by Miss Warner
in certain American libraries, in the period between 1912 and 1919. Most of these
descriptions may be considered ’’type entries”.
        