In Armenia attempts to edit bibliographies date back to the Middle Ages. To fully appreciate the bibliographical work accomplished in the Matenadaran one must take into consideration the three following phenomena:
1. The bibliographic heritage of the Middle Ages,
2. The bibliographical description of the manuscript collections,
3. The scientific bibliography.
It is obvious that each of these spheres has subdivisions about which we shall speak below.
In the 5th-18th century no bibliographical work was created in the actual meaning of the term. Nevertheless numerous lists which came down to us are of great value as samples of primitive bibliography. Those are lists of apocryphal books, of Armenian writers and historians, foreign historians, ecclesiastic authors, commentators, authors of hymns, historians of Armenian Church councils, as well as catalogues of manuscripts kept in the libraries (matenadarans) of various monasteries.
As thousands of Armenian manuscripts have disappeared during centuries, this kind of lists, as well as evidences given by diverse authors, allow having an idea of works written or translated in the Middle Ages by Armenian authors, even if they have not reached our days.
Bibliographical descriptions and catalogues, to use the actual term, are of primordial importance for the studies of Armenian medieval literature. This task was begun in the 19th century, but the main works go back to the three last decades. Those are catalogues of the manuscripts kept in the Yerevan Matenadaran, in Jerusalem, Venice, Vienna and elsewhere.
According to H. Anassian, scientific bibliography is subdivided into two disciplines: bibliography and bibliology, which are widely different from each other, but are of similar interest. In the bibliographical context, there exist catalogues of periodicals, printed books and so on, but the only work on bibliology, which is a purely scientific discipline, is the Armenian Bibliology by H. Anassian, situated in the frame of an integral program, only two volumes of which are published.
