The year 2000 marks the publication of the 50th volume of Bibliographie Linguistique / Linguistic Bibliography (BL). Founded by the Comité International Permanent des Linguistes / Permanent International Committee of Linguists (CIPL), BL was first published in 1949 in a two-volume set covering the years 1939-1947. Half a century later, BL has established itself as a major work of reference in the field of linguistics and language studies, renowned for its comprehensiveness and accuracy.
The year 2000 also marks the beginning of a new era for BL. After fifty printed volumes, BL is to be made available on the Internet in the near future. Four volumes worth of records totalling over 100,000 titles are now waiting to be accessed electronically. To celebrate both these occasions, a symposium will be held under the auspices of CIPL and organized by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB), the National Library of the Netherlands, which employs and houses the BL team. The symposium will not only deal with (socio-)linguistic aspects of some lesser-known languages, but will also focus on the future of linguistic bibliography in the age of internet.
