thumb|alt=drawing of column-studded room in which men study rolls of papyrus.|19th-century artistic rendering of the Library of Alexandria, where Callimachus compiled the Pinakes When working at the Library of Alexandria, Callimachus was responsible for the library's cataloguing. In this function, he compiled a detailed bibliography of all existing Greek literature deriving from the library's shelf-lists. His catalogue, named Pinakes after the plural of the Greek for 'tablet' (), amounted to 120 volumes or five times the length of Homer's Iliad. Although the Pinakes have not survived the end of antiquity, scholars have reconstructed their content from references in surviving classical literature. Authors and their works were divided into the broad categories of 'poetry' and 'prose'. Both categories were further broken down into precise subcategories. For poets, these included, among others, 'drama', 'epic', and 'lyric'; for prose writers, 'philosophy', 'oratory', 'history', and 'medicine'. Entries were sorted alphabetically, giving an author's biography and a list of his works. According to the classicist Lionel Casson, the Pinakes were the first comprehensive bibliographic resource for Greek literature and a "vital reference tool" for using the Alexandrian Library.
thumb|alt=drawing of column-studded room in which men study rolls of papyrus.|19th-century artistic rendering of the Library of Alexandria, where Callimachus compiled the Pinakes When working at the Library of Alexandria, Callimachus was responsible for the library's cataloguing. In this function, he compiled a detailed bibliography of all existing Greek !literature deriving from the library's shelf-lists. His catalogue, named Pinakes after the plural of the Greek for 'tablet' (), amounted to 120 volumes or five times the length of Homer's Iliad. Although the Pinakes have not survived the end of antiquity, scholars have reconstructed their content from references in surviving classical literature. Authors and their works were divided into the broad categories of 'poetry:' and 'prose'. Both categories were further broken down into precise subcategorie:s. For poets, these included, among oth!ers, 'drama', 'epic', and 'lyric'; for prose writers, 'philosophy', 'oratory', 'history', and 'medicine'. Entries were sorted alphabetically, giving an author's biography and a list of his works. According to the classicist Lionel Casson, the Pinakes were the first comprehensive bibliographic resource for Greek literature and a "vital reference tool" for using the Alexandrian? Library.