Peel's Bibliography of the Canadian Prairies to 1953. 3rd ed.

Joseph Jones is a reference librarian in the Koerner Library at the
University of British Columbia.

In round numbers, this third edition of the bibliography adds 3000
entries to the 4400 of the 1973 second edition. Bruce Peel spent more
than 20 years amassing additional information, but died in 1998 before a
new edition could see publication. A group at the University of Alberta
(his academic home) completed the project. They created a database,
assigned subject headings, and used online library catalogues to verify,
expand, and correct “the great majority of the bibliographic
entries.”

Two prairie-based booksellers collaborated extensively with Peel during
his two decades of additional research. In significant measure this
bibliography helped to create a market, which then fed information back
to the bibliography. Well over half of the items listed seem to be
pamphlets.

Beyond growth in size, four other changes stand out in the third
edition. Renumbered entries necessitate a separate table of
cross-references from those of the second edition. Subject terms taken
from the thesaurus for the Canadian Periodical Index replace a
broad-class subject outline with browsable titles. Citation of library
locations and printed bibliographic sources has been eliminated because
online library catalogues are judged to “greatly diminish the need.”
An additional index details languages of publication.

Like the prairie itself, this bibliography raises questions of shape
and boundaries. Most evident is a primary chronological arrangement
based on a date assigned to contents. Two late 19th-century Cree
versions of Pilgrim’s Progress dated to 1678 demonstrate the
difficulties of this approach. Meanwhile, all usual searches require the
awkward intermediate step of an index.

The entry for Martha Ostenso’s novel Wild Geese serves to illustrate
two concerns. First, this author’s other works seem not to have been
reviewed for inclusion. Still absent is The Young May Moon (1929), set
in Amaranth, Manitoba. Second and more serious, Peel’s citation of a
1925 Dodd Mead edition (with mention of McClelland & Stewart as Canadian
publisher) has been altered to give priority to a presumed 1924
McClelland & Stewart edition. Likely derived from a single misdated
University of Toronto record in the AMICUS database, this entry
demonstrates the pitfalls of revising the bibliography with reference to
online library catalogues.

A complementary open-access database version supported by the
University of Alberta Library has already permitted the addition of two
entries and will facilitate ongoing updating and correction.