bibliography

PNG gets a mammoth bibliography

A New Guinea Bibliography.

Compiled by Alan Butler.

Waigani. University of Papua New Guinea Press, 1984.

US$l5O for five volumes.

Have you ever wanted informa tion on the human cranium from New Guinea, as collected by Lord Mayne in the early 1900 s?

I haven’t, but frequently I have tried to locate references on specific subjects connected with Papua New Guinea. Until now there have been various bib liographies published but They have been limited in their scope. Probably the most com prehensive until now has been that published by the national library.

However, at last, a compre hensive bibliography is being published. Volume One of A New Guinea Bibliography compiled by Alan Butler, libra rian at the University of Papua New Guinea, is now available.

The publications listed are all the monographs, pamphlets,

theses, reports, government documents, seminar papers, journals, etc., which were pub lished either in Papua New Guinea or deal with Papua New Guinea or Irian Jaya topics up to 1983. The listing is based on holdings of the major libraries in Papua New Guinea.

The work represents a mam moth task. Alan Butler talks lightly of the job and says it was compiled in odd moments left over from running the UPNG library.

Altogether the bibliography will consist of five volumes. The first covers bibliography, lib rarianship, philosophy, religion, sociology, anthropology, ethnology, the arts, politics, ad ministration and law.

Volume two will have econo mics, commerce, transport, psychology and education as its headings. Volume three will carry languages, literature, sci ence and medicine. Volume four will have applied sciences, agriculture, geography, history

and periodicals, serials and annuals. Volume five will be the index.

The first book contains 563 pages and probably is an indi cation of the size and breadth of the entire work; not only a shelf-filler, but a thorough, reli able and impressive guide to everything written about Papua New Guinea - everything I ever wanted to ask about the country (but I was afraid to ask, perhaps).

I suppose if one wished to be super-critical one could de mand a little more background on the contents of the books and research papers. However there is a limit to just how much detail one can include in a volume of this kind.

On turning through the pages I was pleased to see even Grass Roots cartoons are listed. Re searchers will find in Volume One lists of books covering every tribal group, hard-to-find books on PNG arts and crafts, fascinating books tracing the history of the country from colonisation to independence, including guides for expatriate employees, books on “condi

tions of service material under tropical conditions in New Guinea”, plus countless other references from religion to de centralisation.

I look forward to further volumes. The second should be available this year, with others appearing at monthly intervals during the year.

Obviously, treasures abound of which we have yet to be in formed. In the outline of Volume three, for example, there is word of “fiction in- English about New Guinea writ ten by foreigners before 1900.”

The mind boggles at what this section will turn up. Altogether a mother lode of fascination in prospect.

The bibliography project is associated with the celebration of the Centenary of British and German Colonisation of Papua and New Guinea. Profits from its sale will go towards printing a revised edition of the Encyclo paedia of PNG. The full set of five volumes is priced at $l5O (U.S.). It isn’t for the fashion able coffee table, but is a must for the serious researcher.

John Hunter.