About the Book
This handbook has been designed to provide a concise and up to date guide to the various facets of reference librarianship. The core of the book is a series of chapters dealing with the various categories of reference material - dictionaries, encyclopaedias, directories, newspapers, periodicals, maps, atlases, reports, patents, standards, bibliographies, etc. The authors provide a critical evaluative commentary on the material that they have included. Emphasis is placed on the various formats available for each type of reference source. Each chapter of this new edition has been re-written and updated and the overall coverage of reference librarianship has been extended by the inclusion of additional chapters on community information, electronic publishing and audio-visual sources.
Table of Contents:
Part 1 Introduction, Peter Lea. Part 2 Dictionaries : scope, development, uses, dictionary-making, examining, evaluating, types and titles; general language dictionaries; subject dictionaries; special purpose dictionaries; translating dictionaries; books of quotations; concordances; library provision, Kenneth A. Whittaker. Part 3 General encyclopaedias: criteria; English-language encyclopaedias; junior encyclo paedias; foreign-language encyclopaedias - German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian; list of general encyclopaedias; buyer's guides; online encyclopaedias, A.John Walford. Part 4 Subject encyclopaedias: role and content; arrangement; indexing; treatment; use; level; currency and accuracy; exploitation, Denis J.Grogan. Part 5 Biographical reference works: biographical reference process; assessment of biographical reference works; universal biographical dictionaries; locating newspapers; newspaper history, Barrie I.MacDonald. Part 8 Periodicals: definitions; reference use; problems of access; types of periodicals - commcercially published, periodicals, learned-society journals, letter journals, house journals, synoptic journals, newsletters, translation in journals, progress in.....; periodical formats - microforms, on-line full-text databases, full-text journals on CD-ROM; periodical bibliographies - current general bibliographies, current subject bibliographies, retrospective bibliographies, union lists, library catalogues; guides to the contents of periodicals - current awareness servcies, indexing and abstracting, services, Hazel Woodward. Part 9 Reports and theses, conferenc es and symposia, standards and patents: reports; theses; conferences and symposia; standards; patents, C.Peter Auger. Part 10 Maps, atlases and gazetteers: selection; general maps; thematic maps - geological, land-use maps, charts, road maps; atlases - general reference atlases, national atlases, road atlases, historical atlases, early and local maps, gazetteers, Susan Howard. Part 11 Local history: local studies librarianship, bibliographies, theses, records for local history - national records, private records, local records, parochial records; using archival sources; newspapers and periodicals; parliamentary papers; directories; genealogical research; census reports; current - national or area biographical dictionaries; retrospective, current - specialized biographical dictionaries; retrospective, current - bibliographical guides and indexes to biography; collected biographies, Chris E.Makepeace. (part contents).
