Donna McKenzie

Writer whose published works contribute to contemporary literature and nonfiction. The McKenzie name in book history is most prominently associated with D.F. McKenzie (1931–1999), the New Zealand bibliographer whose Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (1986) revolutionised the field by arguing that bibliography should encompass all forms of recorded meaning, not just printed books.

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PeriodContemporary

Nationality

1. Biography

A short life of the author

Donna McKenzie is a writer whose published works appear in contemporary literature and nonfiction.

The McKenzie name in the world of book culture and bibliography is most significantly associated with Donald Francis McKenzie (1931–1999), the New Zealand-born bibliographer and textual scholar. D.F. McKenzie’s Panizzi Lectures, published as Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (1986, British Library), fundamentally expanded the scope of bibliographic study by arguing that bibliography should concern itself with all recorded forms of meaning — manuscript, print, oral, digital — and with the social processes by which texts are produced, transmitted, and received. His work transformed the field.

Collecting McKenzie

For collectors interested in the McKenzie name, D.F. McKenzie’s Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (1986, British Library; expanded Cambridge edition, 1999) is a landmark scholarly text collected by bibliographers, book historians, and library scientists.

First editions of the original Panizzi Lectures are scarce and valued by scholars of the book as a cultural object.