Pinakes

The Pinakes (Ancient Greek: Πίνακες "tables", plural of ) was a bibliographic work composed by Callimachus (310/305–240 BCE) that is popularly considered to be the first library catalog; its contents were based upon the holdings of the Library of Alexandria during Callimachus' tenure there during the third century BCE.

The Library of Alexandria had been founded by Ptolemy I Soter about 306 BCE. The first recorded librarian was Zenodotus of Ephesus. During Zenodotus' tenure, Callimachus, who was never the head librarian, compiled the Pinakes, thus becoming the first bibliographer and the scholar who organized the library by authors and subjects about 245 BCE. His work was 120 volumes long.

Apollonius of Rhodes was the successor to Zenodotus. Eratosthenes of Cyrene succeeded Apollonius in 235 BCE and compiled his tetagmenos epi teis megaleis bibliothekeis, the "scheme of the great bookshelves." In 195 BCE Aristophanes of Byzantium was the librarian and updated the Pinakes, although it is also possible that his work was not a supplement of Callimachus' Pinakes themselves, but an independent polemic against, or commentary upon, their contents.

The collection at the Library of Alexandria contained nearly 500,000 papyrus scrolls, which were grouped together by subject matter and stored in bins. Each bin carried a label with painted tablets hung above the stored papyri. Pinakes was named after these tablets and are a set of index lists. The bins gave bibliographical information for every roll. A typical entry started with a title and also provided the author's name, birthplace, father's name, any teachers trained under, and educational background. It contained a brief biography of the author and a list of the author's publications. The entry had the first line of the work, a summary of its contents, the name of the author, and information about the origin of the roll.

Callimachus' system divided works into six genres and five sections of prose: rhetoric, law, epic, tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, history, medicine, mathematics, natural science and miscellanies. Each category was alphabetized by author.

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