Georg Hermann Valentin"the greatest of the mathematical bibliographers"1848–1926187918851897190019101924 ICM1928 ICM1944 February |
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Valentin, a student of Weierstrass receiving a degree in 1879,
worked for most of his adult life
on a comprehensive catalogue for mathematics. He received
grants from various societies and government agencies to travel to
great libraries in other countries to collect information; he also
spent quite a bit of his own money. He was extremely careful and gave
full bibliographic references. He reviewed a book by Wölffing,
Mathematischer Bücherschatz, which purported to list most
monographs in pure mathematics for the 19th century - needless to say,
Wölffing's book was found to be inadequate and incomplete by
Valentin. Part of the conditions of one of his grants required that
he place the catalogue in the Preußischen Staatsbibliothek.
By the time he died he had over 200,000 entries in his catalogue
covering the period from the beginning of printing through 1900.
The activities were announced first in
1885
by Valentin and periodic updates were given (
1897,
1900,
1910).
There were further discussions
at the ICMs in 1924 and 1928. The catalogue (or rather parts of it)
were almost published in 1928. The MAA was very much in favor of
lending its support. Apparently it was thought that it would take 5
years of editing; the lack of both an editor and money for the project
killed it. After Valentin died, the cards sat in the
library until February, 1944, when they were destroyed by fire along
with the library (reported by Knobloch).
Raff's review of it in the JFM 58.0044.02 Poggendorff's biographical entry for Valentin (volume 4, p. 1542) Eneström's description of the project (1910) Review of Wölffing, Zeitshrift f. Math. u. Physik 50 (1904), 335-340 |