Theories and Methods of Mathematical, Scientific, and Technical Bibliography (TMMSTB)

This group proposes to investigate the various theories of bibliography with a special focus on how they apply to mathematics, science, technology, and their interlinked histories. Recognising that bibliography deals with the evidence of human activity, typically found in printed books, but also found in all sorts of human-made objects, this group thinks of the methods of analysing this evidence and the historiography adopted to work with it. We aim to understand the particularities of mathematical bibliography alongside other forms of bibliography foregrounding questions of disciplinary boundaries. Some questions we hope to consider:

• Is there a method or theory for mathematical bibliography? Is this method distinct or related to one for scientific or technical bibliography?

• What is the relationship to methods and theories of bibliography, historiography and ways of writing history?

• What is the relationship to different global modes, methods, theories, and pratices of bibliography to global history?

• Are there strategies and tactics at play in the formation of the disciplines around and through bibliographical methods and theories?

• What is bad bibliography? What is good? Why does it matter?

• How is bibliography for the historical investigation of a discipline related to bibliography in service to the activities of that discipline?

• What sorts of physical, material, and logical evidence can be used to analyse texts? What forms of text can we extend our methods and theories to?

• What is–or could be–the relationship between bibliography and other material studies connected to books, text, and ideas?

• How does the activity of classification relate to the tradition of enumerative bibliography?

• And any other questions of interest to the group!

  graph LR;
    bibliography -->|is a kind of?| historiography;
    historiography -->|creates?| B[global history];
    B[global history] -->|can be?| just;

The first meeting will be:

28 January 2025

1600h (UTC+0) 28 January at the International Newton Institute Mezzanine and online email jp.ascher@ed.ac.uk for Zoom link.

Recommended readings on foundations

These readings are recommended to create a shared orientation, but none are required to attend and participate:

• Sarton, The Study of the History of Mathematics (1936): an account of what the history of mathematics can be with a particularly negative view of bibliography.

• Tanselle, “Bibliography and Science” SBA, 27 (1974): a essay on the role of science in bibliography and vice versa by the most accomplished American theorist of bibliography of the twentieth century.

• Barany, “Histories of Mathematical Practice” ZDM (2020): a treatment of the relationship between practices, inscription, and history driving this project.

Examples to discuss

• Todhunter, A History of the Mathematical Theory of Probability (1865): a relentlessly particular account of books on probability. How would this be used? How cannot it be used? What does it overlook? How does its structure create certain focuses and prevent others?

• Green and LaDuke, “Supplementary Material for Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: the Pre-1940 PhD’s” (2008): a supplement to a prominent history of American mathematics. Why is this a supplement and not the book itself? What does the form and structure argue?

• Dean and Wilding, “Assaying Il Saggiatore, with a delicate and precise bibliographical balance” Galilæana (2023) and its accompanying chart: a recent example of analytical bibliography as a method considering watermarks among other things. How does it differ from the preceeding? What does it achieve that they do not? What is this approach unsuited to?

Bibliographical syllabuses

Participants might look through these sources to find things matching their particular interests to discuss:

• Tanselle, Introduction to Bibliography (2002): don’t let the name deceive you. Up to 2002, this is the most comprehensive listing of major and minor works on bibliography. Several people use this to teach whole courses. Let’s think about if any of this would be useful to study.

• Tanselle, Introduction to Scholarly Editing (2002): similar to the above, but in Tanselle’s tradition scholarly editing is closely related to bibliography, so much of this might pertain.