ABSTRACT
In 1975, Brian Alderson, in a paper presented before The Bibliographical Society, made the following observations:
Although in the past this Society has enjoyed one or two addresses on detailed aspects of children's books…there has been little attempt…to put forward a rationale of the bibliographer's role in the study of books for this large section of the reading public… Now while I do not wish to suggest that a more professional grasp of bibliographical skills will itself enable the study of children's books to gain greater maturity, there can be no doubt that scientific bibliography is able to play as important a role in supporting the very varied activity that is taking place among children's books as it does in the field of literary studies elsewhere… I Implicit in all that I have been saying so far is the contention that, at the nuts-and-bolts level, there is much elementary bibliographical work still to be done.
Alderson 1977:203