Role of Bibliographical Databases in Measuring Information: A Conceptual View

Bibliography

The term bibliography was first used by Louis Jacob de Saint Charles in his bibliographic parsiana (1645 – 50) which gained popularity in the eighteenth century. The termis coined from the two Greek words, viz., 'Biblion' and 'graphein'. The meaning of the word biblion is Books and graphein is to write. Thus, etymologically bibliography means ‘writing of books’. Bibliography as defined by Shores (1954), is a “…list of written, printed or otherwise produced record of Civilization, which may include books, serials, pictures, films, maps, records, manuscripts and any other media of communication.” According to Ranganathan (1963), ‘bibliography’ “…is a list of documents listed together for some purpose. The purpose is to bring to the attention of the reader an exhaustive or selective list of documents relevant to his pursuit of study or enquiry.”