The MLA International Bibliography’s History of English-Language

Literary Studies, 1982-2023

Mark Algee-Hewitt & Erik Fredner

Stanford Literary Lab

DH2024

2024-08-08

Significance

• The MLA International Bibliography (MLAIB) is the primary database indexing scholarship in English-language literary studies.
• Records when literary authors and texts are the subjects of scholarship.
• Our project is the first to analyze the MLAIB’s underlying XML.
• Scholarly attention is a good proxy for literary canonicity.

What previous studies have used

Belcher, Wendy Laura. “Reflections: Are We Global Yet? Africa and the Future of Early Modern Studies.” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 33, no. 3 (March 1, 2021): 413–46.

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Porter, J.D. “Popularity/Prestige.” Pamphlets of the Stanford Literary Lab, no. 17 (September 2018). https://litlab.stanford.edu/LiteraryLabPamphlet17.pdf.

Outline

• MLAIB as structured data: a brief history
• Our subset of MLAIB
• What we have already learned from it
• What we want to learn

MLAIB as structured data: a brief history

• MLAIB has adapted new technologies early and often
• E.g., almost certainly the first humanities database on the internet
• The analog MLAIB determined the design of the digital MLAIB
• The bibliography has existed since 1919
• The MLA created custom data structures designed to incorporate old and new data

The MLAIB digitized early

• 1965: First computerized author index
• 1971: Bibliographic entry converted from manual to electronic processing
• 1978: MLAIB queryable online via Lockheed’s DIALOG (cost $250/hour)
• 1982: Contextual Indexing and Faceted Taxonomic (CIFT) Access System and the MLA Thesaurus
• Controlled vocabularies for bibliography year 1981 forward.
• 2009: MLA stops selling the print edition

Outline

• MLAIB as structured data: a brief history
• Our subset of MLAIB
• What we have already learned from it
• What we want to learn

The English-language literary studies subset of MLAIB

• All of MLAIB: 3.2m records
• Our subset: 903k records (about 28% of total)
• Principle of selection: Records describing scholarship about English-language literatures updated between bibliographic years 1981 and 2023
• Bibliography year of 1981+ ensures CIFT controlled vocabulary
• XML contains every field shown on EBSCOhost except abstracts

Outline

• MLAIB as structured data: a brief history
• Our subset of MLAIB
• What we have already learned
• What we want to learn

MLAIB English-language literature records by genre

“Novel” vs. “Prose” vs. “Fiction” vs. “Short Story”

Network diagram showing authors with 1,000 or more MLAIB records where they are affiliated with a given MLAIB prose genre using Fruchterman-Reingold layout.

Among American literature authors dead by 1982, who has the greatest rate of decrease in scholarly attention?

Results of linear regressions of the proportion of American literature MLAIB records for each author per year from 1982 to 2023. Slope increases as an author’s proportion of records increases over time.

Among American literature authors dead by 1982, who has the greatest rate of increase in scholarly attention?

MLAIB reveals a changing canon of authors and a changing conception of literature.

Outline

• MLAIB as structured data: a brief history
• Our subset of MLAIB
• What we have already learned from it
• What we still want to learn

What we want to learn

• “Hypercanon” vs. “Countercanon” vs. “Shadowcanon”
• Damrosch, David. “World Literature in a Postcanonical, Hypercanonical Age.” In Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization, edited by Haun Saussy, 43–53. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.
• How unequal is the MLAIB’s literary canon? (Gini)
• How well does prior attention paid to specific authors and works predict future attention paid to those authors and works?

Thank you!

Appendix

Among all American literature authors, who has the highest rate of increase in scholarly attention?

Among all American literature authors, who has the highest rate of decrease in scholarly attention?

Detail: Network diagram showing authors with 200 or more MLAIB records where they are affiliated with a given prose “genre.”

Innovation of enumerative bibliography

Brown, Paul A., ed. “1956 Annual Bibliography.” PMLA 72, no. 2 (1957): 245.

71,551

unique subject authors

Where did the MLAIB come from?

• Has described new American scholarship about languages and literatures for more than a century:
• The American Year Book, unaffiliated with the MLA (1911-1920)
• American Bibliography, newly affiliated with the MLA (1921-1955)
• Annual Bibliography (1955-1963)
• MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures, now shortened to MLAIB (1963-2024)