HISTORY OF THE BIBLIOGRAPHY

This is included in order to help users understand the idiosyncrasies and limitations of the bibliography.

The bibliography was begun in the early 1970s on 5” x 3” index cards.  By the time that 8000 had been compiled, it was obvious that re-sorting and re-selecting for various purposes was getting out of control.  For example, in order to search in libraries for unobtained articles, the ‘unobtained’ record cards needed to be selected and then sorted in journal/date order.  From about 1984 onwards, the bibliography was transferred to a Cardbox database on a PC.  The version was so early that, although it could select the records required, it couldn’t sort them into any order!

In those days, space was at a premium as there were no hard disks available; instead, 5.25” floppies were used on two drives (A and B).  Then as now, Cardbox offered an indexing system whereby key-words and numbers were indexed by the user.  The fewer words and numbers indexed, the less space was used.  In 1991, the system was upgraded to Personal Cardbox-Plus on 3.5” floppies.  Later, a hard disk was obtained.  

In 1993, the database containing 9000+ records together with a Read-only version of Cardbox-Plus was made available on four 3.5” floppies.

In 2000, the records were transferred to Cardbox for Windows.  Some of the fields were slightly expanded in size, and occasionally authors’/editors’/contributors’ names spill over into the Notes section.  Similarly, with titles; in some cases, titles are truncated.  It is a version of Cardbox for Windows that you can now use by installing the Cardbox Client and opening the 'Virginia Woolf Bloomsbury' file.

At the beginning of 2003, the database totalled over 20,000 records.

Despite its sophistication, Cardbox basically mimicks a manual record-card system - at least as it is used here.

For many years, no words in the title field of the Bibliography were indexed.  Instead, in order to search on the content of an article or book, an abbreviation system was used in the Notes section of each record.  In any case a title may not indicate what an article is about.  For example, the third record is entitled ‘Complications and Simplicities’ and is a review of Orlando; therefore, ORL appears in the Notes section.  If you wanted all items dealing with Orlando, you would be well advised to search for ‘Orl+’.  But if you wanted all items dealing with To the Lighthouse, you should search for ‘Lighthouse’ and then include ‘TTL’.  For further information, please see the Guide.

The many years’ work in compiling this database can now be shared with other Woolf/Bloomsbury enthusiasts/scholars/students, but it should be remembered that it has been produced for the personal use of the compiler and may therefore be inadequate in some respects.


Last updated 4 February 2003