American Reference Books Annual 1998, Volume 29

Citation

Shelton, M. (2000), "American Reference Books Annual 1998, Volume 29", Collection Building, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 168-170. https://doi.org/10.1108/cb.2000.19.4.168.2

A good reference book can be a beneficial tool to a librarian. Add to that book the value of being a collection development tool, and the value of the title is multiplied. Have that book come out every year and be consistent in its quality, and you have something that is invaluable. Add in the fact that the book is forward‐thinking enough to look also at important CD‐ROM products, and you have a tool for tomorrow. This is what you get when that book is the American Reference Book Annual (ARBA). Volumes 29 (1998) and 30 (1999) continue the tradition of reviewing “English‐language reference books published in the United States and Canada during a single year”. Identifying it as comprehensive in coverage makes this title worth looking at.

As mentioned, ARBA provides reviews of reference books. Averaging about 1,600 reviews in each edition, the book covers all subjects. The reviews are organised by subject and specialty, which makes it easy for any reader to find an area of interest. A comprehensive subject index at the end of the book may seem superfluous, since the titles are arranged by subject, but there is value to this index. It pulls together titles from different disciplines, and it provides subjects not easily identifiable in the table of contents. If a review on a particular title is wanted, each volume provides an author/title index.

Each of the reviews in ARBA is succinct, but they do vary in length and quality. This is to be expected, since a large number of contributors write the reviews. Some of the reviews are taken from noted serials as well. In spite of this, the reader is provided with a good understanding of each book and is often given information about past editions of a title or related titles. The reviewers also provide a recommendation as to what group the title would best serve, and the reader will find almost all the reviews to be positive. CD‐ROM product reviews cover both the information on the disc and the software with reference to both installation and searching.

Although excellent in so many ways, the reader should recognize that ARBA is not fully comprehensive. Titles that fall into ARBA’s category of annuals or serials are reviewed only periodically. This is why the reader will not find a review of Bowker’s Software Encyclopedia in either of these two volumes. Therefore, the reader will have to turn to past years, or an alternate source for some reference works. Both volumes also showed a surprising weakness in their coverage of the sciences.

Most notable was the absence of a number of CRC Press titles. Overall, the American Reference Books Annual is a great resource. Reference and collection development librarians in all types of libraries will want to make use of these books.