In one of our first posts to the Fine Books & Collections blog, we bemoaned the fact that many publishers have elected to cut costs by ceasing to publish the scholarly apparatus as an integral part of the book. Nowadays, the indices, appendices, bibliographies, etc., are just as likely to be included on a CD-ROM in a pocket inside the book, or made available via a website. Such a cost-cutting practice makes bibliographic coupling more difficult than it need be.
Scholars (and advanced book collectors) use bibliographic coupling to help them figure out what other books and articles they may need to read and/or buy. Basically, the concept is this: if two titles that are of interest contain a citation in common to a third title, that third title also may prove of interest. A similar concept, co-citation coupling, reverses the situation -- i.e., a third title refers to both of the other titles.
Example: the bibliographies in both of the books depicted below...
...cite a third title published a half-century earlier (and reprinted many times since, in multiple languages):
Bibliographic coupling is a concept that your faithful blogger and his wife use all the time in bookstores to help us figure out what titles we might be missing in a particular area of interest. The first thing both of us do when we pick up non-fiction titles of particular interest is check the bibliography at the back of each book. If we see bibliographic coupling in two or more titles about the same subject, our interest in commonly cited additional titles becomes much greater.
Such serendipity is not possible when the scholarly apparatus that normally is included at the back of a book is missing. Note to publishers: if bibliographic coupling has to await the insertion of a CD or the browsing of a website, impulse book buys are greatly diminished.
The downside of this (if you want to call it that) is that if bibliographic coupling is easily achieved, one's private library is apt to grow much more quickly than it might otherwise....
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