Reference work

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The Brockhaus Enzyklopadie
, the best-known traditional reference book in German-speaking countries 2010-09 CPOV IMG 6251.JPG
The Brockhaus Enzyklopädie , the best-known traditional reference book in German-speaking countries
The Lexikon des Mittelalters
, a specialised German encyclopedia LexikondesMittelalters.JPG
The Lexikon des Mittelalters , a specialised German encyclopedia
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition: volumes of the Propedia (green), Micropedia (red), Macropedia (black), and 2-volume Index (blue) Encyclopaedia Britannica 15 with 2002.jpg
Encyclopædia Britannica , 15th edition: volumes of the Propedia (green), Micropedia (red), Macropedia (black), and 2-volume Index (blue)

A reference work is a non-fiction work, such as a paper, book or periodical (or their electronic equivalents), to which one can refer for information. [1] The information is intended to be found quickly when needed. Such works are usually referred to for particular pieces of information, rather than read beginning to end. The writing style used in these works is informative; the authors avoid use of the first person, and emphasize facts.

Contents

Indices are a common navigation feature in many types of reference works. Many reference works are put together by a team of contributors whose work is coordinated by one or more editors, rather than by an individual author. Updated editions are usually published as needed, in some cases annually ( Whitaker's Almanack , Who's Who ).

Reference works include textbooks, almanacs, atlases, bibliographies, biographical sources, catalogs such as library catalogs and art catalogs, concordances, dictionaries, directories such as business directories and telephone directories, discographies, encyclopedias, filmographies, gazetteers, glossaries, handbooks, indices such as bibliographic indices and citation indices, manuals, research guides, thesauruses, and yearbooks. [2] Many reference works are available in electronic form and can be obtained as reference software, CD-ROMs, DVDs, or online through the Internet. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, is both the largest and the most-read reference work in history. [3]

Reference book

In contrast to books that are loaned, a reference book or reference-only book in a library is one that may only be used in the library and may not be borrowed from the library. Many such books are reference works (in the first sense), which are, usually, used briefly or photocopied from, and therefore, do not need to be borrowed.[ citation needed ] Keeping reference books in the library assures that they will always be available for use on demand. Some reference-only books are too valuable to permit borrowers to take them out. Reference-only items may be shelved in a reference collection located separately from circulating items. Some libraries consist entirely, or to a large extent, of books which may not be borrowed.

Types of reference work

These are the main types and categories of reference work:

Electronic resources

An electronic resource is a computer program or data that is stored electronically, which is usually found on a computer, including information that is available on the Internet. [4] Libraries offer numerous types of electronic resources including electronic texts such as electronic books and electronic journals, bibliographic databases, institutional repositories, websites, and software applications. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Encyclopedia</span> Type of reference work

An encyclopedia or encyclopædia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by article name or by thematic categories, or else are hyperlinked and searchable. Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionaries. Generally speaking, encyclopedia articles focus on factual information concerning the subject named in the article's title; this is unlike dictionary entries, which focus on linguistic information about words, such as their etymology, meaning, pronunciation, use, and grammatical forms.

Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries.

<i>The Chicago Manual of Style</i> Academic style guide for American English

The Chicago Manual of Style is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 17 editions have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publishing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Library catalog</span> Register of bibliographic items

A library catalog is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations. A catalog for a group of libraries is also called a union catalog. A bibliographic item can be any information entity that is considered library material, or a group of library materials, or linked from the catalog as far as it is relevant to the catalog and to the users (patrons) of the library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibliography</span> Organized listing of books and the systematic description of them as objects

Bibliography, as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology. English author and bibliographer John Carter describes bibliography as a word having two senses: one, a list of books for further study or of works consulted by an author ; the other one, applicable for collectors, is "the study of books as physical objects" and "the systematic description of books as objects".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glossary of library and information science</span>

This page is a glossary of library and information science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Spencer Ashbee</span> Book collector and writer (1834–1900)

Henry Spencer Ashbee was a book collector, writer and bibliographer. He is notable for his massive, clandestine three-volume bibliography of erotic literature published under the pseudonym of Pisanus Fraxi.

Gregory Macalister Mathews CBE FRSE FZS FLS was an Australian-born amateur ornithologist who spent most of his later life in England.

A monograph is a specialist written work or exhibition on one subject or one aspect of a usually scholarly subject, often by a single author or artist. Although a monograph can be created by two or more individuals, its text remains a coherent whole and it keeps being an in-depth academic work that presents original research, analysis, and arguments. As a focused, in-depth and specialised written work in which one or more authors develop a uniform and continuous argument or analysis over the course of the book, a monograph is essentially different from an edited collection of articles. In an edited collection, a number of original and separate scholarly contributions by different authors are edited and compiled into one book by one or more academic editors.

Parenthetical referencing is a citation system in which in-text citations are made using parentheses. They are usually accompanied by a full, alphabetized list of citations in an end section, usually titled "references", "reference list", "works cited", or "end-text citations". Parenthetical referencing can be used in lieu of footnote citations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cataloging (library science)</span> Process of creating meta-data for information resources to include in a catalog database

In library and information science, cataloging (US) or cataloguing (UK) is the process of creating metadata representing information resources, such as books, sound recordings, moving images, etc. Cataloging provides information such as author's names, titles, and subject terms that describe resources, typically through the creation of bibliographic records. The records serve as surrogates for the stored information resources. Since the 1970s these metadata are in machine-readable form and are indexed by information retrieval tools, such as bibliographic databases or search engines. While typically the cataloging process results in the production of library catalogs, it also produces other types of discovery tools for documents and collections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grey literature</span> Documents and research not produced for commercial or academic journal purposes

Grey literature is materials and research produced by organizations outside of the traditional commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels. Common grey literature publication types include reports, working papers, government documents, white papers and evaluations. Organizations that produce grey literature include government departments and agencies, civil society or non-governmental organizations, academic centres and departments, and private companies and consultants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theodore Besterman</span> Polish-born British researcher, bibliographer, biographer, and translator

Theodore Deodatus Nathaniel Besterman was a Polish-born British psychical researcher, bibliographer, biographer, and translator. In 1945 he became the first editor of the Journal of Documentation. From the 1950s he devoted himself to studies of the works of Voltaire.

A Guide to information sources is a kind of metabibliography. Ideally it is not just a listing of bibliographies, reference works and other source texts, but more like a textbook introducing users to the information sources in a given field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of books</span> Overview of and topical guide to books

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to books:

The British National Bibliography (BNB) was established at the British Museum in 1949 to publish a list of the books, journals and serials that are published in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. It also includes information on forthcoming titles. This is the single most comprehensive listing of UK titles. UK and Irish publishers are obliged by legal deposit to send a copy of all new publications, including serial titles, to the BNB for listing. The BNB publishes the list weekly in electronic form: the last printed weekly list appeared in December 2011.

As of 2018, ten firms in Germany rank among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: C.H. Beck, Bertelsmann, Cornelsen Verlag, Haufe-Gruppe, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, Ernst Klett Verlag, Springer Nature, Thieme, WEKA Holding, and Westermann Druck- und Verlagsgruppe. Overall, "Germany has some 2,000 publishing houses, and more than 90,000 titles reach the public each year, a production surpassed only by the United States." Unlike many other countries, "book publishing is not centered in a single city but is concentrated fairly evenly in Berlin, Hamburg, and the regional metropolises of Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Munich."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Books in the United Kingdom</span>

Books in the United Kingdom refers to books in the United Kingdom. In other words, "written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers", in the United Kingdom.

<i>Dictionary of Women Worldwide</i> Dictionary of womens biographies

Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Throughout the Ages is a biographical dictionary of women. Published in 2006 by Yorkin Publications, the three-volume Dictionary was intended to redress the paucity of information on women available in other biographical dictionaries. Editors Anne Commire and Deborah Klezmer found that typically five percent or less of the text of such works was devoted to women.

Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years is a 1998 reference work covering the history of English-language science fiction magazines from 1926 to 1936, comprising 1,835 individual stories by more than 500 different authors across a total of 345 issues from 14 magazines. It was written by E. F. Bleiler with the assistance of his son Richard Bleiler, a follow-up to their previous Science-Fiction: The Early Years (1990).

References

  1. "Reference". The Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Inc. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  2. Reitz, Joan M. (10 January 2013). "Reference book". Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  3. "Wikipedia is 20, and its reputation has never been higher". The Economist . 9 January 2021. Archived from the original on 31 December 2022. Retrieved 31 May 2021.
  4. 1 2 Reitz, Joan M. (10 January 2013). "Electronic resource". Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science. Retrieved 29 November 2019.

Further reading

General

Guides to reference works