Why Bibliography?

Abstract

The occasion of the new edition of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identities, and the Law: A Research Bibliography, perhaps leads some to ask, Why bibliography? In these days of instant and abundant results from keyword searches on increasingly intelligent computer tools, isn’t the print bibliography quaintly old-fashioned?

No. No moreso than keyword searching has eliminated the need for the index even in digital books. But these are days when we often must defend the necessity of libraries against the argument that everything is free and on the Internet. Perhaps it should come as little surprise that we must likewise justify, or at least remind ourselves of, the importance of the bibliography. We can then go further and trumpet the value of this bibliography in particular.

Keywords: Bibliography, Libraries, Research