For the purposes of this discussion, a songster is identified as a collection of three or more secular poems to be sung, without musical notation, with a minimum of eight pages, and issued as a book or pamphlet. With musical notation, the term "songbook" is used. Scholars have used broadsides, newspapers, and sheet music in their studies, but the songster should not be overlooked since these early American pocket collections of popular songs represent a body of literature of social, political, literary, and musical interest. Lack of a bibliography of items difficult to trace and identify has been the main reason for neglect of the songster. In compiling such a bibliography, the author discovered 586 pre-1821 songsters of which 72 contained Masonic songs, the largest category, 47 were exclusively patriotic songsters, and 27 were for juvenile use.