Coverage of the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum The Basic Guidelines for Inclusion Introductory remarks he general guidelines contained within the Coverage of the Scholarly Societies Project apply with some modifications. Below, the special circumstances of the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum are discussed, and arguments are given for requiring additional criteria for inclusion. Two Additional Criteria for Inclusion The problem t should be noted that for the pre-1900 period those guidelines allow the inclusion of defunct societies, since many societies of historical interest are now defunct. As it happens,there are far too many societies that were founded prior to 1800 to apply those guidelines without restraint. As a simple illustration, one need only consult Maylender (1926-1930), which limited itself to Italian societies founded prior to 1850: the five-volume set lists many hundreds of societies and academies from Italy alone. Consequently, two additional criteria were imposed on inclusion in the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum. Additional criteria for inclusion The additional criteria for inclusion of societies in the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum were that the society must satisfy one of two criteria: (1) it made a contribution to the scholarly record through collected publications by their members (such as journals), or (2) it had some other significance in the history of scholarship (e.g. as the first society of a sort, or as the precursor of another, more important, society). Is a History Page Needed? The criteria for creating a history page n addition to deciding whether to include a society in the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum, it is also necessary to decide whether the society needs a history page. It was decided that history pages would be created for all societies in the first category; history pages would be created for societies in the second category only when the short historical annotation in the Chronicle would not provide sufficient space to explain the significance of the society. Identifying Societies that Contributed to the Scholarly Record Significance of the Reuss Repertorium to the scholarly record e must now acknowledge the debt that this Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum owes to the Reuss Repertorium. The Reuss Repertorium is a massive index of articles in journals published by scholarly societies; it was published in 16 subject volumes between the years 1801 and 1821. It is an extraordinary work of bibliography that is of signal importance to historians of the 17th & 18th centuries. Its only drawbacks for the present-day user are the somewhat cryptic journal-title abbreviations used, and the employment of Latin by the compiler in various critical places. Problems with the Reuss Repertorium The Reuss Repertorium was a natural tool to use in compiling a list of societies that contributed to the scholarly record. Unfortunately, bibliographic practice of the early 19th century did not require the inclusion of a list of journal indexed, much less an expansion of the abbreviations used to denote them. (This may be contrasted with the situation only a few decades later when the first six volumes of the Royal Society of London Catalogue of Scientific Papers were published.) Using the Reuss Repertorium to identify societies To determine which journals were indexed within this tool, it was necessary to resort to a laborious technique: scrutinizing large blocks of text and transcribing each journal abbreviation, and noting the first place in the Reuss Repertorium that it occurred. The process has extended, on and off, over a number of years, and is far from complete. Close to 1000 pages have been processed in this manner; the number of new journals that are turning up is rather small; these journals are all associated with minor societies. Assessing Comprehensiveness in Covering the Latter The problem his now brings us to the problem of how comprehensive the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum is with respect to the first criterion, that is, how comprehensive it is in including societies that published journals or other collected writings. Two kinds of omission There are two categories of journals from the Reuss Repertorium that are not yet included: (a) journals from societies for which we have been unable to determine a founding date, and (b) journals which have not yet turned up in the process described above. The results In order to assess how complete the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum is from the point of view of someone using the Reuss Repertorium, several hundred pages of the latter were photocopied and checked against the abbreviations list in the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum. These marked copies show that, depending on the subject volume chosen, from 85% to 95% of the journal articles indexed are from journals published by societies with entries already in the Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum. Even though societies remain to be added, the percentage quoted is rather high because the most important societies and academies are already in the project and they published many more volumes proportionately than did the remaining, more minor, societies. Identifying Societies that do Not Satisfy Criterion 1 No systematic technique here has been no systematic technique at hand that could be applied as was the case with Criterion 1. Instead societies that do not satisfy Criterion 1 have been identified in the course of doing other searches for information, for example in reading historical monographs on societies that do satisfy Criterion 1. Published 2004, June 7 Amended 2004, July 10 Jim Parrott, Editor Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum Sending Email to the Project