Search Support for All Kinds of Evidence

Bibliographical techniques to provide sophisticated access to printed publications were developed long ago. Access to other resources has been slower to develop. Bibliographer Donald F. McKenzie wrote that bibliography should be extended to all media including culturally significant landscapes and librarian Suzanne Briet asserted that an antelope in a cage could be a document. But these materials are beyond the scope of established bibliographical practice. So how might a unified framework for the description, indexing, and discovery of all kinds of evidence resources be developed? What are the practical and theoretical consequences of extending (or replacing) bibliography to include antelopes, landscapes, and any other kinds of evidence?

We approach this challenge by examining the history and affordances of bibliographies; adopting the perspective of the person becoming informed; preferring description, archetypes and similarities to definitions, distinctions and dichotomies; and seeking a generalized approach to reference and reference works.