Preliminary note

• Overlaps: All sections are not always perfectly suited, and some references might sometimes find themselves in various sections. This is not so problematic because a reference can always be included in several sections. Remember that a reference first belongs to the whole database, and then can be classified in any folder or subfolder (for that reason, “deleting” and “removing” a reference makes a difference, don’t forget this when reorganising!). This also means that the large amount of sections and subsections is unproblematic: one can still see all references at once by clicking on the main header of the library, and search through them using Tags or Title, Names etc.

• Reorganising: As you will see, not all sections and distinctions seem relevant in every situation, so I hope we can either discuss a reorganisation of the various sections, or manage to make it unproblematic by using tags (see discussion dedicated to “Tags”)

0 Tools for research

As there is no such object as “Archive” among those offered by Zotero, I created a reference for each archive pretending it was a website (and then wrote more details in a note)

1 Works by Landauer

This section is mostly based on Gianfranco Ragona’s bibliography, although more has been added.

• Note on authorship

In this section I suggest we always use "Landauer, Gustav" in the author field. The name with which the article was actually signed (e.g. xyz, or g.l., or Unsigned) should be indicated with the relevant Tag (see Tags discussion).

An independent note could then be created to justify why those unsigned articles should be considered as Landauer's. In some cases (e.g. Ein Weg zur Befreiung der Arbeiterklasse), a specific note should be related to the reference, telling in which text Landauer admitted writing this text.

Concerning the literature on Landauer: when the signature is unclear but the author is known (e.g. C.W. for Colin Ward), we should write the whole name, and then add an explanatory note. For pseudonyms, I suggest we should keep them as such and, when possible, tag the reference with the actual name of the author (also adding an explanatory note, including a justification for this interpretation, e.g. René Forain).

• 2 Talks => to be completed soon by Tilman Leder

This field could be filled in mentioning the places, times and occasions when Landauer is known to have given a talk. When available, the reference of the presentation could then be related to that of the corresponding text published.

2 Landauer studies

This section is the one which is most likely to increase in time. I decided to include a “Translations” folder in each section here so as to avoid that a disproportionate number of references should appear when an article has been translated. In this case, the “first” or “original” version should appear in the main section, and the subsequent translations in the dedicated folder. Both references should also be related, so as to make it easy to find the related translations, and I suggest the original reference be tagged with all languages in which it is translated. Concerning the use of language tags, see “Tags”. Another problem for "Landauer studies": how should we draw the line between a purely descriptive paper and a "study"? (perhaps we just shouldn´t, but this can be discussed as many newspaper articles can be dedicated to Landauer without "studying" his work at all)

• 3_Only mentioning Landauer

This section is somehow problematic, as it raises the question of the limits of this bibliography. In many cases, Landauer's name is only mentioned, nothing more. Sometimes he is rapidly quoted but not discussed (famous quotation from Schwache Staatsmänner, schwächeres Volk!, e.g.). Sometimes the quote is more substantially discussed. So far, in order to avoid judgements on the relevance of the reference to Landauer in any writing, I suggest we mentioned every reference that is found where Landauer is mentioned, while writing in a note the extent to which he is discussed (for example, see Broué, Pierre, Révolution en Allemagne).

• 4_Book reviews

This section is not necessarily the most important either, but as long as we gather all this information, we might as well include these. In this category, it is not quite clear whether some texts should be taken as "Landauer studies", "Contemporaries mentioning Landauer" or "Book reviews of Landauer writings" (e.g. some texts by Mühsam, or by Stefan Zweig etc.).

3 Contemporaries mentioning Landauer => to be completed

The limits of this section if not quite clear: some of these texts could be counted as “Landauer studies”, some are not very clearly contemporaneous, some are by people who knew him and some by journalists. Should this section be rather dedicated to biographical texts? To be discussed.

4 Images of Landauer

Also not the most important here, but a nice way to gather all iconographic documents depicting Landauer.

5 Texts read by Landauer => to be completed

This category would require a much more detailed research, as it involves finding traces of the texts that had an influence on Landauer. It could also include the courses Landauer is known to have followed at university, or lectures he might have attended. Ideally, this could extend up to the persons he met, but this is beyond the bibliographical perspective.

What matters in this category is to try and add a detailed list of items (when available, the precise edition Landauer is thought to have used should be mentioned), but also to justify in a note why we think Landauer has been influenced by this text (e.g. in which letters he mentioned reading it, or in which journal he translated it, in which text he discussed it...). Considering that Landauer does not use scientific standards, this section might eventually prove hard to fill in, but I thought it was worth trying.

Especially for this section, we should not refrain from using the tags "To be checked" and "To be completed" every time an item is not entirely certain (adding a note to explain why there is a suspicion concerning this item).