The book contains the names of 1423 authors whose life periods are known and 288 scholars whose life periods are unknown. The book aims to give bio-bibliographic information on mathematicians astronomers geographers and other scholars who flourished in Asia Africa and Europe from the 7th century until the 19th century. Each item comprises a short biography of the author a list of his works and manuscripts the library call numbers translations researches and different editions of each work. In regard to non-extant manuscripts the reader is referred to the source that contains information on the works. The items contain information on the works about mathematics astronomy mechanics physics music mathematical geography meteorology encyclopedias and works on history of science.

At the end of the book there are two supplements that are arranged alphabetically. The first comprises the list and information on scholars whose life periods are unknown. The second supplement contains the list of anonymous manuscripts located in various libraries all over the world. There are two indexes: the first contains the names of authors and the second the titles of works.