science

International Medieval Bibliography

International Medieval Bibliography is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand International Medieval Bibliography rather than just read about it. In short: The International Medieval Bibliography (IMB) is a multidisciplinary bibliographic database covering Europe, North Africa and the Middle East for the entire period from AD 300 to 1500. It aims to provide a comprehensive, current bibliography of articles in journals and miscellany volumes (conference proceedings, essay collections or Festschriften) published worldwide in over 35 different languages.

Key takeaways

International Medieval Bibliography belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect International Medieval Bibliography to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of International Medieval Bibliography from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The International Medieval Bibliography (IMB) is a multidisciplinary bibliographic database covering Europe, North Africa and the Middle East for the entire period from AD 300 to 1500. It aims to provide a comprehensive, current bibliography of articles in journals and miscellany volumes (conference proceedings, essay collections or Festschriften) published worldwide in over 35 different languages. The organisation and publication of the IMB is a collaboration between the University of Leeds and the Belgian publisher Brepols. As of 2024, the database comprised over 560,000 article records on every aspect of the Middle Ages, with over 16,000 new records being added annually in quarterly updates. A printed update of new records is published annually. The IMB's editorial staff are based at the Institute for Medieval Studies, supported by a worldwide network of academic contributors. Around 2012, the IMB and Brepols joined forces with the Bibliographie de civilisation médiévale (BCM), based at the University of Poitiers, and it is possible to use a joint interface to search for articles in the IMB and monographs in the BCM.

History The IMB was founded in 1967 by Peter H. Sawyer, then at the University of Leeds but visiting the University of Minnesota, with the support of the Medieval Academy of America and funding from the University of Minnesota and the McKnight Foundation of Minnesota. Early volumes appeared annually and each contained around 3,000 records. Until the 1990s, the IMB was produced and its subscriptions managed entirely at Leeds University, with printing and distribution handled by the Leeds printing house Maney. Around 1987, however, the then editor Katie Cubitt decided that the bibliography should be digitised. The Belgian publisher Brepols won the tender, publishing a digitised version of the IMB on CD in 1995, and a close relationship between the IMB, Leeds's Institute for Medieval Studies, and Brepols formed; from 1996-97 Brepols took on both online and print publication of the IMB, with data creation remaining with the Institute for Medieval Studies. From 1995 to 2020, the IMB was home to the Bulletin of International Medieval Research, edited by Alan V. Murray. In 2020, it was announced that the Bulletin and Leeds Studies in English would merge to become Leeds Medieval Studies.

Ethos While many disciplines, such as the sciences and medicine, publish their research predominantly online and in English, a very large proportion of research in the disciplines relevant to Medieval Studies is still published in print (or print plus electronic versions) and in a wide variety of languages. The IMB aims to include publications from all disciplines and languages, focusing on those which represent the newest research and which are not separately catalogued by libraries, i.e. articles in periodicals and essays or papers in conference proceedings, Festschriften and exhibition catalogues. The geographical scope was originally restricted to Christian Europe, but has gradually been extended to include North Africa and the Near East for the entire medieval period, so that it now also forms an important resource for the Islamic heritage as well as the cultures of Christianity, Judaism and the various European pagan religions.

Using the IMB The IMB provides a comprehensive cataloguing and indexing system to help users find articles relevant to their research. Full bibliographical details of publications covered in the IMB are given in a primary entry. In addition, each article is given a "three-dimensional" classification covering general subject (the academic discipline which best relates to its content), geographical area and century/centuries. Many articles are also provided with a brief abstract when the article title is not enough to give the reader an idea of its content. Each article is also given 3-8 keywords, which constitute a controlled vocabulary and allow enhanced search possibilities in addition to unstructured, free searches. In the user interface these index terms can be accessed in the form of browse lists. There are over 120,000 index terms, which are divided into five categories:

Placenames (including geographical features) Medieval countries and peoples Personal names (covering names of individuals, families and dynasties, modern scholars and titles of texts) Keywords (e.g. agriculture, jewellery, sigillography, etc.) Manuscripts and archival holdings. Each category is treated as an authority list, which is continually being refined and expanded by the editors. A hierarchical index offers an integrated tree structure comprising some 1,500 subject terms. This allows the user to navigate from nine major conceptual areas through to the specific subject terminology employed in medieval scholarship. A parallel index of places allows step-by-step navigation from major geographical areas to over 50,000 different names of places, regions and geographical features in Europe, North Africa and the Near East. For example, users can click through from British Isles > England > West Yorkshire > Leeds > Kirkstall Abbey. The IMB is OpenURL-compatible, so that the use of digital object identifiers (DOI) with individual article records means that users can go directly to records in a local or external library catalogue, request a copy from a document supply service or, where their library has a subscription to the publication in question, go directly to a full text version of the article. Export functionality allows users to save and refine the results of searches and so construct their own bibliographies, and email alerts can be set up for new publications which conform to users' preferred search criteria. Details on how to subscribe to the IMB are available on the Brepols website, along with information and YouTube video tutorials on how to get started.

Editors Peter H. Sawyer and Robert S. Hoyt, 1967-1969 Pauline A. Stafford, 1970-1971 Patricia Neal, 1972-1973 Richard J. Walsh, 1974-1985 Catherine Cubitt, 1986-1987 Simon Forde, 1988-1995 Alan V. Murray, 1996-2024 Melanie Brunner, 2024-

See also List of academic databases and search engines

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with International Medieval Bibliography

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what International Medieval Bibliography claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to International Medieval Bibliography before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about International Medieval Bibliography ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of International Medieval Bibliography

In research: International Medieval Bibliography appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses International Medieval Bibliography in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: International Medieval Bibliography is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bibliographic databases and indexes, Medieval studies, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for International Medieval Bibliography outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study International Medieval Bibliography in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what International Medieval Bibliography means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain International Medieval Bibliography out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is International Medieval Bibliography in simple terms?

Why does International Medieval Bibliography matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study International Medieval Bibliography?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on International Medieval Bibliography.