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A bibliography is a list of sources of information on a given subject, or of the literary works of a given author. It can also be a list of the books, articles, etc., that an author used or referred to when writing his/her piece.
Using a bibliography can save you time and effort because somebody else has already done research on your topic and written about it, collecting a list of the sources they used.
| Some bibliographies, like this one, list citations only. |  |
| Annotated bibliographies include a descriptive summary of each work to help you decide whether or not it might be useful to you. |  |
| Critical bibliographies offer criticism of listed works in addition to annotations. |  |
You can usually find a bibliography or list of sources used at the ends of books and articles. There are also entire books that are bibliographies for a certain subject. They may be found in the library's reference section or in the regular circulating collection. You can also search for them in the catalog by doing a WORDS search that includes your topic and the word "bibliography."
For example, typing "herbs and bibliograph*" in the WORDS option of the OhioLINK catalog would bring up a list of bibliographies about herbs and books about herbs that contain bibliographies.
This is a citation for a book:
Paul Johnson is the author of the book, Elizabeth I is the title, and Holt, Rinehart and Winston is the publisher. To find this book, do an author search (Johnson) or a title search (Elizabeth) in either your local online catalog or OhioLINK.
This is a citation for an article:
Pico Iyer is the author of the article, "The playing fields..." is the title of the article, and The New York Times Book Review is the title of the periodical. The only way to find this article in a library is to do a title search in your local online catalog or OhioLINK for the title of the periodical. Individual articles will not be indexed in the catalog.
Bibliographies, like most information sources, may contain errors or outdated information. Also, not all bibliographies are selective in nature; the sources listed may not be the best available for your topic. Non-annotated bibliographies give no information about the content of the sources listed; you may have to spend more time reviewing sources to see if they will be relevant to your research.
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