In the year 1830 only one book was published dealing with Mormonism, The Book of Mormon. But with each year, the number of publications on Mormonism has increased.

Enough was published about Mormonism during the first 100 years of the church's existence to keep Larry W. Draper and Chad J. Flake busy at least one day a week for the past 12 years, working on a newly revised resource of early Mormon history.

The product of Draper, curator of the Western and Mormon Americana Print Collections at BYU's L. Tom Perry Special Collections and Flake, former senior librarian, is an expanded bibliography containing more than 15,000 pages and 14,400 entries. The second-edition of "A Mormon Bibliography, 1830-1930: Books, Pamphlets, Periodicals and Broadsides Relating to the First Century of Mormonism" was recently published by BYU's Religious Studies Center. The bibliography contains 2,700 new entries since the first edition was published in 1978.

Over 600 researchers and historical scholars gathered last week for the 39th Annual Mormon History Association Conference. Members of this association are among the target audience of the bibliography.

Among them, Patty Aird, a resident of Seattle, looks forward to acquiring the second edition of the bibliography. Aird has used the first edition and was impressed by the thorough research of the authors.

"This is the most significant bibliography on Mormonism," Aird said. "Other bibliographies on Mormonism are only reference books written by church members. This bibliography includes everything written on Mormonism; the good and the bad."

The bibliography traces all publications from the church's first 100 years of existence and directs researchers to where the publication can be located. The bibliography includes references to government documents and church publications.

"It is a well recognized bibliography in scholarly circles," said George Mitton, associate editor of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies review. "The bibliography is used by many scholars who are interested in the study of LDS history and doctrine."

These scholars use the bibliography as an aid for discovering books on Mormonism as well as locating them.

"You can't acquire a book until you know it exists," Draper said. "This bibliography is useful to other libraries and researchers because it establishes the existence of certain books."

BYU's Religious Studies Center specializes in publishing books that are scholarly in nature and have a limited print run. The Mormon Bibliography is a specialty item; therefore, major publishers usually do not publish these types of items because of their niche market. But the bibliography is of special interest to researchers, historians, book collectors and book dealers.

Devan Jensen, executive editor of BYU's Religious Studies Center said the bibliography is useful to point people in the right direction.

"For those interested in primary documents these books are a must," Jensen said.

In addition to books from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, references are also included from break-offs of the Church, including the Community of Christ, formerly known as The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Although the bibliography has been published, Draper said his work is not over.

"It's a never-ending project," he said. "We continue to find new things and add them into an electronic database."



Copyright Brigham Young University 24 May 2004