| The task of the
bibliographer has changed enormously over the years. Before our digital
informtion age, the number of paper sources and
bibliographic resources was growing, while the ability of any one
bibliographer to consult them was diminishing. Not all could live
within travel range of a world-class research library, with tens of
thousands of active periodical subscriptions, millions of books
and
all of the important serial bibliographies. Interlibrary loan services
were uneven. The distribution range of
small-scale locally or regionally produced serials was often limited,
and the bibliographer needed to have a regular correspondance
friendship with colleagues in key geographic locations. In
focusing on a single author, like François Villon, the
limitations of broad ranged serial bibliographies such as those of the
MLA or YWMLS became more pronounced each year. Even the
nationally and linguisticlly specialized Bibliographie der
französischen Literatur-wissenschaft (O. Klapp) ,
with much fewer library locations than the others, only yields an
average of five or six unique entries per year on Villon.
College library subscriptions to electronic serials databases,
period-specific databases such as ITER
and the IMB
Online, or even broad-ranged and open access to online resources
such as the Andy
Holt Virtual Library have the potential to put the bibliographer in
many libraries around the world at the same time. Even without the
funding for the first two subscription bibliographies, much can be done
with open access resources. I have attempted to put into chronological order a number of the major bibliographical resources targeting François Villon. It is a pity that so few who have written about Villon have seen Marchand's annotated bibliography(first entry), which reflects the popularity of the poet during the very years where, as many claim, he was all but forgotton. Lack of attention to seventeenth and eighteenth-century bibliography has caused some modern scholars to accept all too easily the unsupported claims of nineteenth century editors and essayists. |