Todd Karr is one of the handful of people in magic who have earned the designation of scholar. His huge collection of magic books, a portion is pictured above, is the secret ingredient behind the magnificent books he publishes through Miracle Factory. Each one aims to tell the whole story of a magician's life and work, and involves a huge amount of research.

Earlier this year he published a heavy set of three books encompassing his Bibliography of Magic; Conjuring Books from 1584 to Today.

While everyone is applauding the effort, there was plenty of feedback pertaining to that pesky little "...to Today." The problem with a printed bibliography is that it becomes out-of-date before it gets delivered. There were dozens of new magic books published just this month!

I don't know if it was in response to this feedback, or it was the game plan all along, but Todd has now launched his research as an online database. Fully searchable, and able to keep pace with new publications.

The actual records are limited to a standard bibliographical entry; basic details about a copy of a book. Title, author, publisher, date, etc. It does not include contents of the books.

Access to the database is a reasonable $39 per year, which is very fair for those who want to get serious about their historical research.

Take a look at MagicBib.com