bibliographer

A bibliographer is a scholar or professional who studies, describes, and compiles bibliographies—organized lists of books, articles, and other written materials. The term covers both those who create descriptive and analytical bibliographies and those who work as part of libraries, archives, publishing houses, or scholarly projects. Bibliographers may specialize in a particular field, language, author, or time period, and they often contribute to the organization and accessibility of literature within a discipline.

In library and information science, the work involves bibliographic control: describing items, creating metadata, and maintaining catalog records so that users can locate and identify sources. Common outputs include annotated bibliographies, standard catalog entries, and bibliographic databases. Descriptive bibliography studies the physical books themselves and their edition states, while analytical bibliography examines a text's transmission and textual variants, print history, and copy relationships.

Practicing bibliographers use metadata standards such as MARC, Dublin Core, and Resource Description and Access (RDA); they are familiar with authority files, indexing, and citation conventions. Skills often include research, language knowledge, paleography, and familiarity with library management systems. They may work in universities, national libraries, museums, or publishing houses, and they support scholars by compiling subject-specific bibliographies and bibliographic guides.

The field has roots in antiquity and grew with print culture, evolving from basic lists to systematic, methodical approaches in descriptive and analytical bibliography. In the digital era, bibliographers also create and curate online bibliographies, digitized collections, and knowledge‑organization tools that aid discovery and scholarship.