Contributions to the History of Library Terminology

Specialized historical dictionaries of the terminologies of particular disciplines would be valuable reference aids. This paper presents such a subject glossary, in skeleton form, for the discipline of library science. After a discussion of the general characteristics of library terminology and the current state of library lexicography, a glossary lists quotations supplementing the coverage of library-related vocabulary in the "Oxford English Dictionary (OED)" and the "Dictionary of Americanisms (DA)." This supplementation consists of earlier evidence of the usage of some library terms than that furnished by "OED" and "DA" and of early citations for some of the more important library terms that are not yet listed in any historical dictionary.