Kallimachos: The Alexandrian Library and the Origins of Bibliography

Abstract

This study of the Alexandrian Library, published in German in 1977, is available here in English for the first time. Rudolf Blum argues that Kallimachos of Kyrene, the second director of the library, was the inventor of two essential scholarly tools: the library catalogue and the biobibliographical reference work. Blum critically examines the early history, administration and technical achievements of the Alexandrian Library, showing that Kallimachos was a brilliant innovator and the first to develop bibliographical tools still in use to this day. He turned a simple inventory of scrolls into a true catalogue, the Pinakes, which recorded for each work the name of its author, data on his life, the title, the extent of the text measured in standard lines, and whether it was contained in one or several scrolls. The catalogue was classified by literary genre and the names of authors or titles were alphabetized in each class which the Pinakes have not survived. Blum attempts a detailed reconstruction of Kallimachos' lists and methods based on careful analysis of surviving sources, which are presented here in full translation.

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