Thread by @phoebe_ayers

Now a break from your regularly scheduled political despair to bring you a BIBLIOGRAPHIC MYSTERY

Behold, the IBN – Index Bio-Bibliographicus Notorum Hominum: a completely nuts 300-volume compendium of biographical source references. zeller-verlag.de/ibn/241,de 1/

Now, granted I'm no humanities librarian, but I have never heard of this work. I discovered it in the Widener reading room, where I popped in to send some emails after a meeting at Harvard. 2/

What it is comprised of is 2 parts. The 1st lists biographical sources and also mini-biographies? I'm not sure, because that set of volumes was not on the shelf. 3/

What IS is "pars C" which is a very cryptic 145 volume set of names and codes. The codes refer to other works where a biography of that person might be found. The print is small. There are a LOT of names. 4/

So far so good. Insane, but good. (Except for me not having the index to decipher the codes). The MYSTERIOUS part is I decided to write a quick Wikipedia article about this wonder. But I can find NO SOURCES. 5/

The thing is 300 volumes, has been underway since 1971, and no one has ever even mentioned it in the library literature? In German or English? Help me out, bibliographic Twitter. 6/

P.s. if bibliographic Twitter is not a thing I am hereby making it a thing, cc @wikigamaliel 7/

But anyway I don't care if it's one guy self-publishing the thing, a 300-volume print index is inherently notable. But I want to know more!!! 8/

Chief among my questions is: who are these people; are they ever going to finish; and can we put the whole thing in Wikidata. Anyway, please help me solve this. The only thing I found on the open web or off is this really lovely page on wikisource: en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Literary_…

My fave part from wikisource: "Because the General Introduction (which will explain principles of compilation, guidelines for using the work, and transliteration practices) has not been published, the scope, organization, & criteria governing selection of sources remain unclear."

So they are doing the explanation last, which is clearly a good idea when you are talking about something that is clearly someone's life work. cc @smythsewn

ps Mark found a snarky mention in the botanical literature (

https://twitter.com/mjntendency/status/1058154585569878016

), I found an article using it to figure out mortality of famous people, it's been cited a handful of times on German Wikipedia, the Wikisource thing, the pub website, & a buncha catalog records

and that's IT.

OK, NOW you can go back to your regularly scheduled despair! But finding obscure stuff is fun. <3