Search results

“What above all marks out a reference book from other works is the way it is arranged: it must be deliberately designed for ease of consultation rather than for continuous reading.” “Ease of consultation,” an essential component for reference books, as stated by Gavin Higgens in his book Printed Reference Material, is a criterion that reference librarians often consider as they use reference books to answer questions. Reference book publishers have long used various special features designed to speed access to information in these sources. Thumb indexes for dictionaries come to mind immediately when one thinks of this type of special feature. Some publishers include printed index tabs listing sections or subject categories, as in The National Directory of Addresses and Telephone Numbers, where the tabs are on a separate sheet of paper to be attached to the appropriate pages by the librarian. Margin or edge indexes in the Washington Information Directory or in the Government Reports Announcements & Index provide quick identification of sections to turn to, and are easy to use for both patrons and librarians. Color can also be used as a device to distinguish different sections of a reference tool. Literary Market Place and Magazine Industry Market Place, for example, use yellow pages to separate the main body from the quick reference directory of names and telephone numbers. Of course, these devices are not substitutions for indexes or tables of contents, but are helpful to librarians and users who want to be more self‐sufficient. The editor of this column would like reference book publishers to consider including more of these devices in their publications. Readers are invited to write to this editor with other examples of special features which promote “ease of consultation” of reference serials.

One of the more popular exhibits at the ALA meeting in Philadelphia in July was the online demonstration of the Academic American Encyclopedia. Clusters of librarians gathered to watch and assess the performance of this reference source. Some greeted it with skepticism, others with enthusiasm; but it was quite evident that the day of the single format reference source has passed. Multiple format reference sources were discussed and demonstrated throughout the exhibition hall.

School Library Media Annual. 1983‐ . A. Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited. Ed. by Shirley L. Aaron and Pat R. Scales. 333p. $35. LC 84–640490. ISSN 0739–7712. OCLC 9809890. School Library Media Annual 1983 is the first volume of a new annual publication from Libraries Unlimited. It was developed to cover important events, issues, concepts, and trends relevant to the field of school librarianship. The specific purposes of School Library Media Annual are:

Shepard, Leslie A., ed. Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology; A Compendium of Information on the Occult Sciences, Magic, Demonology, Superstitions, Spiritism, Mysticism, Metaphysics, Psychical Science, and Parapsychology. 2d ed. 3 vols. Detroit: Gale, 1985. $245. 1,617p. ISBN 0–8103–0196–2. OCLC 10457831. As its title indicates, the Encyclopedia treats a wide range of topics. A reader can find in its three volumes information on witchcraft, spiritualism, the development of the field of parapsychology at Duke University, unidentified flying objects, and the Reverend Jim Jones. Like the first edition, this is based on two older, single‐volume works, the Encyclopedia of Occultism by Lewis Spence and the Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science by Nandor Fodor. Over three thousand entries from these books appear, largely intact, in the present work. A few minor editorial changes are made for clarity, and many minor inaccuracies are corrected. Moreover, additional sections, paragraphs, sentences, dates, or addresses are added where the editor feels there is a need for updating. The entries of Fodor and Spence are supplemented by over thirteen hundred new entries written by the editor. These articles largely reflect fields, events, persons, organizations, and periodicals of the period since the publication of the earlier volumes.

In this article, I have traced the literature of marketing libraries and information services from 1970 to the present. This period immediately follows Kotler and Levy's introductory article in the Journal of Marketing (January 1969) which first suggested the idea of marketing nonprofit organizations. The use of the marketing concept for libraries and information services was an idea which did not appear until after that date. However, many articles on specific aspects of marketing, such as publicity and public relations, were published prior to 1970. These areas have been touched upon only briefly to show their connection with marketing.

The Web is a communication and information technology that is often used for the distribution and retrieval of personal information. Many people and organizations mount Web sites containing large amounts of information on individuals, particularly about celebrities. However, limited studies have examined how people search for information on other people, using personal names, via Web search engines. Explores the nature of personal name searching on Web search engines. The specific research questions addressed in the study are: “Do personal names form a major part of queries to Web search engines?”; “What are the characteristics of personal name Web searching?”; and “How effective is personal name Web searching?”. Random samples of queries from two Web search engines were analyzed. The findings show that: personal name searching is a common but not a major part of Web searching with few people seeking information on celebrities via Web search engines; few personal name queries include double quotations or additional identifying terms; and name searches on Alta Vista included more advanced search features relative to those on AlltheWeb.com. Discusses the implications of the findings for Web searching and search engines, and further research.