Facts

• Size of the database: 94,776 book articles, 14,8961 journal articles, 92,774 monographs and reviews, 1,420 processed periodicals
• Annual update of the database with approx. 16,000 titles
• The bibliography is "annotated", i.e. it contains notes including the following information: Notes identifying forewords and epilogues, appendices, bibliographic details, discussions etc. and authors covered, works, topics etc.
• Three language versions: German, English and French.
• The years 1956–1990 have been retro-digitised and are available as searchable PDF files (OCR).

History

In 1956 Saarbrücken-based librarian Otto Klapp launched the annual Bibliographie der Französischen Literaturwissenschaft, adding a standard reference work to the Romance programme of the Vittorio Klostermann publishing house. Klapp initially worked on the Romanische Bibliographie, which was overseen by Alwin Kuhn and was generally issued at five year intervals as a supplement to the acclaimed Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie. The pace of publication was too slow for him and the structure of the bibliography was not transparent enough, and so he resolved to launch his own bibliography, limited exclusively to French publications. Editing the Klapp has been a "one-man enterprise" ever since. In 1986 the task of editing passed to Otto Klapp's daughter, Astrid Klapp-Lehrmann. Since then the scope of the bibliography has almost doubled (cf. Vittorio Klostermann: Publisher's catalogue 1930-2000. Publisher history and bibliography. Published by Vittorio Klostermann. Frankfurt am Main 2000).

The content of the Klapp has also been available in an online version since 2013. This contains a database covering the years from 1991. The 1956-1990 years have been retrodigitised and made accessible in the form of a searchable PDF file. Today the Klapp is an indispensable bibliography for everyone who works with French literature.