A thematic bibliography has the dual function of research summation and discipline boundary-demarcation. When a discipline is still forming, and its patterns are still pliable, a bibliography could have a stabilizing effect, laying the foundation for future scholarship. The admittance of entries from a variety of relevant fields into the bibliography establishes them as the scholarly canon, and they become the core around which subsequent research clusters. This function is apparent in particular in this bibliography of Jewish folklore.