The literature surrounding the Olympic Games is voluminous. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) now publishes various magazines, journals, press releases, and books. Each National Olympic Committee (NOC) and International Federation (IF) also may publish literature concerning the Olympic Games and often does so. The Organizing Committees publish a great deal of official information in addition to press releases and packets.
Private authors have also developed an enormous amount of Olympic literature. Books on the Olympics are now produced prior to and after each Olympic Games, in most of the major languages of the world. With the advent of advanced technology, some are now being produced on CD-ROMs to be read via computers.
No current up-to-date bibliography of Olympic literature exists. The two most complete and most recent are currently over 30 years old. They are The Olympics: A Bibliography, compiled by Bill Mallon (New York: Garland Press, 1983) and Bibliography: Geschichte der Leibesübungen, Band 5, Olympische Spiele (second edition), compiled by Karl Lennartz (Bonn: Verlag Karl Hofmann, 1983).
However, because of computer technology and Internet capabilities, it is unlikely that a full-scale book-type bibliography will be produced again. Probably the most complete and up-to-date Olympic bibliography can be found by searching the SPORTDiscus site, which is the sport bibliography of the Canadian literary resource, SIRC (Sport Information Resource Centre), which is updated quarterly. It does require a subscription to use the database.