The Council of the Bibliographical Society has approved the following statement of the Society’s interests, with the particular intention of providing guidance to authors of monographs who may be considering publishing with the Society:

The Bibliographical Society promotes and encourages publications in historical, analytical, descriptive and textual bibliography. The scope of these has widened in recent years to include the making and use of manuscripts, the history of printing, publishing and illustration, the study of bookbinding, the history of the book, as well as the history of libraries and the study of provenance, readership and book collecting. The Society’s publications relate to every part of the world and to all periods.

The following eight subject categories provide some specific examples of areas of interest:

  • Biographical dictionaries of the book trade.
  • Analytical or historical studies of aspects of the book and the book trade.
  • Studies of libraries and collections of bibliographical consequence, with introductions.
  • Facsimiles and editions of items of bibliographical interest, with introductions.
  • Manuscript, palaeographical, and textual studies.
  • Marks in books, including provenance studies.
  • Studies of books as physical objects (binding, structure, paper, methods of printing, processes of illustration, etc.).
  • Bibliographical handbooks; bibliographical theory and methodology

These guidelines are also applicable to proposals for electronic publications.