Approximately seven thousand bibliographical entries comprising bibliography records the scholarly publications in folkloristics over 75 years (1918–1992): text publications, research, surveys, reports, questionnaires, reviews, and abstracts. As objects of bibliographical entries were chosen monographs, autoabstracts of dissertations, collections, and articles in academic journals, in continued publications and in collections. Newspapers and popularscience journals have been left aside, except for Horisont and Kultuur ja Elu, from where appropriate articles are described selectively. Writings on the neighbouring disciplines, i.e. ethnology, linguistics, history, or the theory of literature, have been included if the studied subject is closely related to folklore.

The bibliographical index has been drawn up according to subjects. In the limits of one subdivision, the entries are systematized in the alphabetical order of authors/titles. Entries in Russian are placed at the end of the author’s entry list. The author’s name in Cyrillic type is preceded by the Roman type variant in brackets, then follow the titles in Russian, arranged according to Cyrillic alphabet. The majority of bibliographical descriptions have been checked de visu. The descriptions that were included in the list relying only on indirect bibliographical references are marked by an asterisk at the end of the entry.

The bibliographical entries cover mainly publications deposited at the Estonian Academic Library, at the Estonian National Library, at the Tartu University Library, at the Archival Library of the Estonian Literature Museum, and at the nearby stack of the Estonian Folklore Archives. On the other hand, books from the personal libraries of folklorists and other scholars were also available to the compiler.

Electronic version is based on the publication: Ribenis, Karin : Eesti rahvaluule bibliograafia (1918–1992) = Bibliography of Estonian Folklore (1918–1992) = Библиография литературы по эстонской фольклористике (1918–1992) I / Karin Ribenis (koost / toim); Eesti Keele Instituut. – Tallinn 1997. – 612 lk.