Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
Summer 2019
Abstract
Abstract
In the 1960s, before computers enabled people to combine myriad terms in a single search and “interdisciplinary research” was just coming into vogue, Ilse Bry (1905-1974), a German-born émigré librarian working in New York City suggested that the lines between the behavioral sciences and individual disciplines were not as rigidly drawn as was assumed. With this in mind, she founded the Mental Health Book Review Index (1956-1974), compiling and making sense of book reviews from some 255 journals that, she believed, signaled trends in literature and the discovery of new knowledge. The essays she wrote for each issue were remarkable for their breadth of literary knowledge and appreciation of bibliographic applications. In 1977 Bry’s writings were compiled in a book, The Emerging Field of Sociobibliography. (Afflerbach)