Subject Encyclopedias: User Guide, Review Citations, and Keyword Index, Parts I & II

Citation

Fisher, D. (2000), "Subject Encyclopedias: User Guide, Review Citations, and Keyword Index, Parts I & II", The Electronic Library, Vol. 18 No. 6, pp. 448-469. https://doi.org/10.1108/el.2000.18.6.448.7

“Never judge a book by its cover” is not a bad philosophy and is particularly apt when assessing this particular work, adorned as it is by words such as: Philosophy; Business; Women; Sport; Crime; and Science. At first glance one may be forgiven for thinking that here is a fairly wide‐ranging encyclopedia, but a brief delve into the text reveals a somewhat different story. The breadth of coverage is certainly broad, but Allan Mirwis, a US college librarian, has not compiled an encyclopedia, rather an index to articles in subject encyclopedias.

Part I provides the bibliographic details of 1,129 subject encyclopedias (including related publications such as companions, guides and dictionaries) published between 1990 and 1997. The entries are arranged by Library of Congress classification number with additional Title, Subject Headings, Dewey Decimal, Publisher, and Ratings indexes. Mirwis explains how the ratings for each encyclopedia were arrived at and the process sounds horrendously complicated, including: the number of entries the encyclopedia has on OCLC divided by 500, awards received multiplied by two – enough said. Mirwis also provides each entry with a review average number on a 1‐5 scale (5 being the best), by assigning numbers to how positive the reviews were in selected US library publications. Citations for the reviews are also included, so one can check for oneself.

Part II comprises an a‐z keyword index to articles within 98 subject encyclopedias (although Mirwis says he also indexes the titles of all the works included in Part I). The original selection of 1,129 was made using the criteria: new or revised edition since 1990; published in the English language; intended audience of adults, high school and college students; reviewed in one or more library journals. These were reduced to 98 works “especially well‐suited to helping library users begin their research”. The comprehensive index, ranging from reference to an organization called A Better Chance, Inc. to Zygote Adoption, refers the reader to articles within encyclopedias for which they can find the full bibliographic details in Part I. Regardless of the merits of such a venture, it is hard not to be impressed by the sheer volume of work involved for one individual.

Putting the scholarship to one side for a minute, though, the essential question to ask is: was it worth all the effort? To some extent the answer depends upon how important you think subject encyclopedias are and how many your library stocks. Not surprisingly, Mirwis believes them to be very valuable and that libraries should have a good supply of them.

If a library has most of the encyclopedias indexed by Subject Encyclopedias, then yes, it is a useful tool. But, it’s a big if, particularly as the emphasis is solidly American. The next question is how important is it to have a subject index to encyclopedias which are almost by definition arranged alphabetically by subject? I would have thought a reader is going to gain more from an article in an encyclopedia stocked by the library they are using, than by finding reference to a similar publication in Mirwis’s work which they don’t have.

The other issue is: has technology made such an index redundant? Digital sources are increasingly the first point of call for all levels of information seeker and, whilst the indexing of electronic sources may not always be as sophisticated as we might like, in many ways subject searching has never been easier. Mirwis does mention if a particular publication is available electronically, but such products are few and far between in his collection.

As the author suggests, I think Part I (the encyclopedia entries) is a useful collection development tool for librarians which could assist them in locating and assessing subject encyclopedias. In my opinion Part II – (the subject index) – is of less value for the reasons stated above: the likelihood that any one library will only stock a small number of the works indexed; subject encyclopedias are easy to use; and digital information tools are replacing more traditional reference works. I can’t help but think that, despite the industry contained within their pages, the heavy volumes are destined to gather dust on the reference shelves.