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Article
Publication date: 1 March 1989

David Levinson

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the incorporation of the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) as a private, nonprofit educational institution. HRAF was founded and…

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Abstract

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the incorporation of the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) as a private, nonprofit educational institution. HRAF was founded and continues to exist with one primary mission in mind—to encourage and facilitate the cross‐cultural study of human culture, society, and behavior. This mission has mainly involved the continuous expansion, updating, refinement, and distribution of the Human Relations Area Files Cultural Information Archive (HRAF Archive). The archive, which now contains nearly 800,000 pages of text, provides both historic and contemporary descriptive information on the ways of life of people in over 330 different cultural, ethnic, religious, and national groups around the world.

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Reference Services Review, vol. 17 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1990

Marie Kroeger

UnCover, a multidisciplinary article access database, was released in December 1988 to members of CARL (Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries). Since its release, access to…

Abstract

UnCover, a multidisciplinary article access database, was released in December 1988 to members of CARL (Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries). Since its release, access to UnCover has been acquired by additional libraries through a gateway connection. UnCover is made possible by the cooperation of eight of the CARL libraries, which presently send their journals to CARL Systems Inc., where they are checked in and their table of contents entered into the UnCover database (See Table 1). The journals are returned to their libraries within 24 hours. The diversity of the universities' academic programs and the many interests of the public library clients have resulted in the creation of this large database containing journal citations on virtually every subject (See Table 2). As of June 1990, UnCover contains nearly 10,000 journal titles and over 900,000 article titles.

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Reference Services Review, vol. 18 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1989

David W. Nelson

The value of newspaper indexes in libraries is a topic that few public services librarians would be willing to debate on the negative team. Most large and mid‐size libraries, and…

Abstract

The value of newspaper indexes in libraries is a topic that few public services librarians would be willing to debate on the negative team. Most large and mid‐size libraries, and many small ones, subscribe to indexes of major dailies such as the New York Times or the Christian Science Monitor. Recent advances in computer technology have not only made these indexes more efficient to publish, but have also made online access to full‐text newspaper databases possible. However, access to the contents of local or regional newspapers is often more important to the typical library user than indexed information carried in the national press, with the possible exception of Dave Barry's column.

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Reference Services Review, vol. 17 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1992

Ronald K. Inouye and David A. Hales

With the discovery of oil on Alaska's North Slope, the continued issues regarding the Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act, the oil spill of the Exxon Valdez in the Prince…

Abstract

With the discovery of oil on Alaska's North Slope, the continued issues regarding the Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act, the oil spill of the Exxon Valdez in the Prince William Sound, the controversy over oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the recent announcement by the United States Geological Survey that the Arctic will be the focal point for global change studies, Alaska, once known as “Seward's Follie” and a place that should be given back to Russia, continues to be in the forefront of national and international news.

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Reference Services Review, vol. 20 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1988

Sharon S. Chadwick

Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry is the fifth completely revised edition of Ullmann's Encyklopaedie der Technischen Chemie, the fourth edition of which was completed…

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Abstract

Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry is the fifth completely revised edition of Ullmann's Encyklopaedie der Technischen Chemie, the fourth edition of which was completed in 1984. The fifth edition began with volume Al in 1985 and is expected to be completed in thirty‐six volumes by 1996, three or four volumes appearing each year. A cumulative index will be published each year to provide access to published volumes. This reviewer had volumes A1 through A7 (1985–1986) and the Index to Volumes A1 to A4 (Abrasives to Calcium Sulfate) (1986) available for review. The most noticeable difference between the fourth and fifth editions is “publication of the Encyclopedia in the English language rather than in the German of its predecessors.” (editors' preface to vol. A1) Thus, it can now join the ranks of the other prominent encyclopedia of chemical technology and industry: Kirk‐Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology (Wiley‐Interscience, 3d ed., 1978–84, 25 vols.). Another comprehensive chemical engineering encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of Chemical Processing and Design (John J. McKetta, editor; Dekker, 1976) is incomplete, as of this writing, volume 27 (covering through lectone dimethyl) being the latest to have been published. Since the first edition is incomplete and not as well established in the chemical technology community, the Encyclopedia of Chemical Processing and Design will not be discussed here. Anyone interested in a comparative review of all three encyclopedias is referred to the review by Jay Matley entitled “Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry,” which appeared in Chemical Engineering (vol. 93, no. 8 [28 April 1986]: 95–98). This review will compare the fifth edition of Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry with the third edition of Kirk‐Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology (the two works will be referred to as Ullmann and Kirk‐Othmer, respectively).

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Reference Services Review, vol. 16 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1993

Ellen H. Ehrig

Surveying is one of the world's oldest professions. The Egyptians used a system of ropes and knots to relocate boundaries along the Nile after periodic flooding; they also used…

Abstract

Surveying is one of the world's oldest professions. The Egyptians used a system of ropes and knots to relocate boundaries along the Nile after periodic flooding; they also used the plumb bob. The Babylonians are credited with dividing the circle into 360 degrees, and as early as 1600 BCE the Chinese were using a form of magnetic compass. In the second century BCE Greeks were using the astrolabe. There are numerous references in the Bible to surveying, such as, “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark” (Deuteronomy 27:17). Plane tables were used in Europe as early as the sixteenth century. Modern surveying is said to have begun in the late eighteenth century.

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Reference Services Review, vol. 21 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1990

Janet Evans

Summer is here. Not only have you noticed that the dogwood and irises are in bloom, but you've also tracked the barrage of garden and lawn‐related questions of the past few months:

Abstract

Summer is here. Not only have you noticed that the dogwood and irises are in bloom, but you've also tracked the barrage of garden and lawn‐related questions of the past few months:

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Reference Services Review, vol. 18 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1992

Robert Kieft

The heady system of high‐pressure Continental air that drifted across the Atlantic and collided with the traditional cyclonic patterns of U.S. literary academe in the mid‐1960s…

Abstract

The heady system of high‐pressure Continental air that drifted across the Atlantic and collided with the traditional cyclonic patterns of U.S. literary academe in the mid‐1960s precipitated a “Theory Revolution” that has brought a couple of decades of stormy and stimulating weather to the campus. The collision has produced occasionally furious debate and resulted for higher education in the kind of public attention customarily reserved for athletic scandals; it has kept tenuring processes in turmoil and publish‐or‐perish mills working round the clock.

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Reference Services Review, vol. 20 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1991

Daniel Hanne

Two profound changes are taking place in Europe—the economic and political integration in the West and the democratic and economic evolution of the East. Though war and its…

Abstract

Two profound changes are taking place in Europe—the economic and political integration in the West and the democratic and economic evolution of the East. Though war and its expectation have been the destiny of the European nation states since the Middle Ages, the future holds out the promise of peace, economic growth, and prosperity.

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Reference Services Review, vol. 19 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1990

Nicholas J. Goetzfridt and Mark C. Goniwiecha

Micronesia, a term that means “small islands,” refers to a region of Western Pacific islands scattered across an area of the Pacific Ocean larger than the continental United…

Abstract

Micronesia, a term that means “small islands,” refers to a region of Western Pacific islands scattered across an area of the Pacific Ocean larger than the continental United States (see figure 1). This vast area, located in the tropics almost entirely north of the Equator, covers more than 4,500,000 square miles of ocean and includes more than 2,100 palm tree‐studded islands, islets, and coral atolls. Yet its total land area is fewer than 1,200 square miles—only slightly larger than Rhode Island (see figure 2). Only about 125 of the islands are inhabited on a permanent basis, by some 350,000 people.

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Reference Services Review, vol. 18 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

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