Witte.indd Selected Reference Works, 2007–08 1 Sarah Witte and Mary Cargill This article follows the pattern set by the semiannual series initiated by the late Constance M. Winchell more than fifty years ago and continued first by Eugene Sheehy and then by Eileen McIlvaine. Because the purpose of the list is to present a selection of recent scholarly and general works, it does not pretend to be either well balanced or comprehensive. A brief roundup of new editions of standard works is provided at the end of the articles. Code numbers (such as AC527) have been used to refer to titles in the Guide to Reference Books, 11th ed. (Chicago: ALA, 1996). Reference Ebook Collections Credo Reference (formerly Xrefer). London; Boston: Credo Reference 2001– . corp. credoreference.com. Price varies. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002– . www.oxfordreference.com. Price varies. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Detroit: Gale Group, Thomson Learning, 2002– . mlr. com/gvrl/. Price varies. Blackwell Reference Online. Oxford: Black- well Publishing Ltd. 2006– . www. blackwellreference.com. Price varies. The Cambridge Companions Complete Collection. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006– . www.cambridge.org/online/ccol/. Price varies. As we have had occasion to note in this column before, the crossing from print to electronic has not been equally easy for all genres in the academic library. Journal articles and bibliography, for example, have quickly found a se ing that o en feels even more natural and comfortable than their original print home. Books, by contrast, are still struggling to find their ideal electronic format. Reference books, arguably, have fallen somewhere in between. At the outset, they seemed the perfect candidates for a digital format, since the structured char- acter of their content seemed to lend itself ideally to presentation as a database, and the prospect of a searchable corpus held out the promise of simultaneous retrieval of several entries on a particular topic, enabling quick comparison of the o en varying “authoritative” information that reference books contain. In fact, however, it has taken a fairly long time for this genre to mature online, and the evolu- tion is still very much a work in progress. When the content of individual entries is relatively brief and not complexly struc- tured, and the works in question likely to be used on an occasional rather than steady basis, reference works have been relatively easy to transform, although Sarah Wi e and Mary Cargill are reference librarians in Butler Library at Columbia University; e-mail: spurgin@columbia.edu and cargill@columbia.edu. Although it appears under a byline, this list is a project of the reference departments of the Columbia University Libraries and notes are signed with the initials of one of the following staff members: Barbara Sykes-Austin, Avery Library; Elizabeth Davis, Music Library; Alysse Jordan, Social Work Library; Helen Lane, Brooke Watkins, Robert H. Sco , and Junko Stuveras, Butler Library. 459 mailto:cargill@columbia.edu mailto:spurgin@columbia.edu www.cambridge.org/online/ccol http:blackwellreference.com http:www.oxfordreference.com http:credoreference.com 460 College & Research Libraries September 2008 even then, one is sometimes surprised by the limited advantage taken of structure to enhance searching and retrieval. On the other hand, in the case of works with longer, essay-like content, or works with a complex structure, or ones that need to be consulted frequently, such as bilingual dictionaries, electronic editions have quite o en proven less than satisfactory. To be sure, there are outstanding examples of excellently cra ed online reference books, such as the Oxford English Dictionary or the Dictionary of National Biography. The very success of those works, however, is so closely tied to the peculiarities of their structure that it is o en hard to imagine their being joined with other reference tools for anything but the simplest of cross-searches. Important steps toward an enhanced, multitool online reference library have been made, nonetheless, in the last few years. This essay takes a look of five of the most important collections, all featur- ing titles and publishers that have long been a mainstay of our print reference collections: Blackwell Reference Online, the Cambridge Companions Complete Collection, Credo Reference (formerly Xrefer), the Gale Virtual Reference Library, and Oxford Refer- ence Online. Four of these resources ex- plicitly describe themselves as reference collections, while Cambridge presents its companions as but another unit in its Cambridge Collections Online. All but Credo are produced by a company that is itself a publisher of reference works. Two of the collections (Gale and Credo) offer works by multiple publishers, while the other three offer collections of their own titles only. Two (Cambridge and Blackwell) represent compilations of a fairly uniform type of publication—companions and/or handbooks—which tend to be divided into lengthier, more discursive essays on a topic, designed for introductory reading, as opposed to the more granular format of lookup tools like dictionaries or ency- clopedias. The other three offer a more varied mix of dictionaries, encyclopedias, companions, and handbooks, although the Gale offers primarily encyclopedic works. The size and scope of the collections varies considerably. Probably the first to have become familiar to ACRL libraries, Oxford Reference Online, with 175-plus titles, is also the smallest, but it is a high-powered, comprehensive lookup collection of authoritative works, typi- cally offering brief descriptive articles. It includes a general encyclopedia, subject encyclopedias in the humanities, history, sciences, social sciences, applied sciences, and arts, as well as a number of English dictionaries and bilingual dictionaries, dictionaries of quotations, maps and illus- trations, and historical timelines, all prod- ucts of that leading academic publisher. The collection is available in a couple of different-sized subscription packages, with the possibility of adding a small number of purchased Oxford titles. Credo Reference (formerly Xrefer), which appears to be the oldest of these collections, also offers a broad multidisciplinary collec- tion of tools in a broad range of subjects. Its contents include titles from a variety of publishers, such as Penguin, Scribner’s, Collins, ABC CLIO, Chambers, Routledge, Macmillan, Elsevier and others, as well as such traditional standards as Brewers Dictionary. The collection contains only a handful of selected titles from Cambridge, Blackwell, and Gale, and virtually nothing from Oxford, meaning that it excludes some of the key titles likely to be essential parts of our reference collections. It is marketed on a subscription basis, with a slightly less expensive core set of 100 titles and a slightly more expensive version providing access to the full collection (cur- rently 312 titles). Of all the resources rep- resented here, it does the most impressive job of covering multimedia resources, and, as noted below, its interface presents some of the most innovative efforts to provide tools for working with its content. It also does the fullest job of addressing science and medical reference. Another broad collection of reference encyclopedias, subject dictionaries, and Selected Reference Works, 2007–08 461 handbooks is the Gale Virtual Reference Library. While its offerings include Gale’s own reference titles, the range of available offerings include the works of many other publishers as well. The total amount of potentially available material here is the largest of any of the collections, with a list of about 1,500 titles. However, since the model for acquisition is different, basically a title by title purchase, the size of the collection is likely to vary consid- erably from institution to institution. Furthermore, many of the titles listed as part of Gale Virtual Reference on the title list may be accessed at some institutions as part of the Biography Resource Center. Moreover, the range of available titles cuts across such a broad variety of publi- cations, including materials for younger readers as well as adult ones, that no one institution is likely to want to include all of them. It is worth noting, however, that, on the whole, many of the titles here are multivolume works with lengthier articles than are typically found in the Oxford and Credo collections. At the same time, because of the à la carte character of this material, it is less selfconsciously cra ed as a comprehensive collection than Ox- ford or Credo. Blackwell Reference Online includes a wide range of reference tools produced by that publisher, with the largest num- ber of them the well-known series of companions, along with some subject dictionaries, encyclopedias, and hand- books. Together they cover the fields of literature, linguistics, history, geography, classics, philosophy, religion, art, cultural studies, anthropology, communication and media studies, economics, gender studies, law, politics, psychology, race and ethnicity studies, sociology, business and management, and medicine, with rela- tively li le coverage of the pure sciences. The predominance of companions, which typically have lengthier articles providing an overview of a topic, means that these publications are less designed to serve as quick lookup tools than as a way to find lengthier introductory or overview articles on topics. Specific names and terms, when they occur here, o en func- tion more as examples than as classical dictionary or encyclopedia definitions of those words. In all fairness, Cambridge does not bill its Companions as a stand-alone reference database but simply as a component of Cambridge Collections Online. However, since Cambridge Companions have long been a key component of academic ref- erence collections, and since its content parallels much of what is in Blackwell Reference and some of what is found in the others, they seemed worth looking at here as well. This collection is only in the early stages of its development; and, while it features a total of 282 titles, its focus is currently narrower than that of the others, currently with two modules: one devoted to Literature and Classics, with an emphasis on the former and on individual author companions; and the other devoted to Philosophy, Religion, and Culture, with fullest coverage of phi- losophy and a large number of guides to works of individual philosophers. A be er sense of the contents of each of these collections can be gleaned by a series of 32 full-text searches I ran on each of these collections. In a somewhat ad hoc a empt to look at a range of top- ics, I searched for the following words, phrases, or expressions in the five collec- tions: “adenosine triphosphate,” “Alaric AND visigoth*,” “Aschenbach,” “bipolar disorder,” “blog,” “brain,” “Caliban,” “creationis*,” “cyclotron,” “deconstruc- tion,” “discourse analysis,” “global warming,” “hekhalot*,” “hesychast,” “hiphop OR hip-hop,” “Kyoto proto- col,” “lamais*,” “llama,” “Me ernich,” “Mishna*,” “money market,” “narrative within 10 words of gender,” “phenom- enolog*,” “Sartre,” “scabies,” “Scriabin OR Scriabine OR Skryabin,” “sonnet,” “sufi,” “synesthesia OR synaesthesia,” “Talmud,” “Taoism,” and “yantra.” The results need to be qualified slightly by the fact that my institution’s Gale Virtual Refer- ence includes only a fraction of the titles 462 College & Research Libraries September 2008 available (77) for that resource, meaning that the results for this resource would be potentially much greater than what appears here. However, the fact is that Blackwell Reference Online automatically stems terms to retrieve derivatives, so that the results for that resource should probably be reduced slightly for a truer comparison; also, the Cambridge Com- panions series is only in the early stages of its development and hence is not as comprehensive as the others. I should also note that I was using Credo’s newly developed database, now in beta version. The comparison also highlights the differ- ence between Blackwell and Cambridge on the one hand, with works less designed as lookup than reading tools and the other three, which concentrate more heavily on dictionary and encyclopedia type of infor- mation retrieval. The point here, then, is not some kind of bakeoff, but simply to give a feel for the texture of the informa- tion that each collection provides. The spreadsheet of all the results is available online at www.columbia.edu/~sco r/re- fcomp.xls. Despite being formally the smallest col- lection in number of overall titles (though larger than Columbia’s collection of Gale titles), Oxford led in providing the largest number of hits for the largest number of questions, 13 out of the 32, with particular strength in history, humanities and gen- eral reference (Alaric, Aschenbach, blog, Caliban, Hesychast, lamais*, llama, Met- ternich, sonnet, Sufi, synesthesia, Taoism, yantra) and provided the second largest number of hits in 10 out of 32 instances: adenosine triphosphate, cyclotron, dis- course analysis, global warming, hek- ahlot* (tied with Cambridge and Credo), hiphop, Mishna*, money market, Sartre, Scriabin, Tamud. Virtually as strong in this lookup exer- cise, however, was the performance of the Credo reference, which provided the most answers to 9 of the questions (adenosine triphosphate, bipolar disorder, brain, cyclotron, hiphop, money market, Sartre, scabies, Scriabin) and the second-most hits to 15 of the queries: Alaric, Aschenbach, blog, Caliban, creations*, hekhalot* (tied here with Cambridge and Oxford), Kyoto Protocol, lamais*, llama, Metternich, sonnet, Sufi, synesthesia, Taoism, yantra. In fact, overall, it provided the largest number of first- or second-most refer- ences. These results reflect the conscious effort of both of these publishers to create a comprehensive reference lookup library, with an emphasis on works containing many brief entries. Credo’s strength in the area of scientific and medical literature is also clearly reflected here. One suspects that, had my library’s Gale Virtual Reference package included all available offerings, it would have provided the most hits for almost all of these questions, given its abundance of multivolume encyclopedias with lengthy articles. As it was, even our truncated Gale collection provided the largest number of hits for 6 of the query terms (global warming, Kyoto Protocol, creationis*, hekhalot*, Mishna*, and Talmud), re- flecting the presence of large subject en- cyclopedias in environmental, religious, and Jewish studies. It also provided the second-most number of hits for three other terms (bipolar disorder, brain, and phenomenolog*). The lowest number of hits, under- standably in light of what we have said above, was registered by the two collec- tions of companions. The Blackwell collec- tion, nonetheless, did provide the largest number of hits for 4 query terms—signifi- cantly, ones related more to methodology and interpretation than to specific facts or phenomena (deconstruction, discourse analysis, narrative within 10 words of gender, and phenomenlog*). The much smaller and more focused Cambridge collection, while (not surprisingly) not providing the greatest number of hits for any of the query terms, did provide the second number of hits for four terms, reflecting either the more interpretive character of the companions or the chance of detailed focus on a specific topic in one or another of them. www.columbia.edu/~sco�r/re Selected Reference Works, 2007–08 463 What I want to concentrate on most of all, however, is the question of interface. Not too long ago, there seemed, in the world of academic databases, to be an emerging working consensus on a set of tools for querying databases, a set of logical query techniques that held out the promise of like searching of varied resources, enabling a minimally trained user to apply the same rules in master- ing unfamiliar resources encountered for the first time and coming away with some confidence that they had thoroughly explored what was there. Those tools involved a set of logical operators, prox- imity operators, grouping techniques, and truncation and wildcard strategies. Recent years have seen signs of a certain “fatigue” in this area, with old ways being replaced by new and frankly o en infe- rior approaches introduced in the name of “intuitiveness” and “natural language processing,” which ultimately propose a paradigm that makes the IT expert be- hind the curtain, rather than the database searcher, the true conductor of the search. A “smart” tool endeavors, increasingly, to guide a presumably nonsmart user to what they really want. The old ways are o en characterized as “arcane” with an implicit assumption that users can- not or should not be expected to learn how to query resources more effectively and without too much worry that the abandonment of an older set of shared standards might lead to confusion and the disempowerment of the user. One of the arguments heard is that the old-fash- ioned, stylized ways do not speak to the Net generation and need to be replaced with a set of more intuitive approaches. But one can only wonder at the replace- ment of a fairly consistent, learnable, and applicable set of logical and proximity operators with an “intuitive” system con- sisting of, say, an implicit AND, a +, a –, an OR, implicit nesting, uncontrollable and unpredictable stemming, and completely mysterious proximity operation. One area in which this tendency emerged fairly early was in some of the best online subject encyclopedias. One thinks of the excellent Grove dictionaries of music and art, with their somewhat enigmatic and only partially satisfactory “concept” and “pa ern” searching. Sadly, one sees some of the same tendencies in the collections examined here. Only Gale, to its enormous credit, in this reviewer’s view, adheres to the “older” (and more user-empowering) standards. This eschewing of the “old-fashioned approach” no doubt owes something to the inevitable desire of IT professionals to push the envelope, to find new ways of approaching the data, and perhaps to a sense that what has always been done is not the only way that things could be done. It seems very likely as well, howev- er, that a powerful influence here has been the success of Web search engines—most important, of course, Google. One thinks back to the assertion of the short-lived old Excite search engine that one no longer needed to learn “arcane” Boolean opera- tors to search from resources, but just to type in natural-language questions and let the computer figure out what one needed. The academic publishers will not out- Google Google. There is no way they can master the la er’s expertise in providing a “democratic” search engine that can give virtually any consumer or tourist on the Internet some useful chunk of the multitude of information out there. Instead, they should concentrate on their own mission, which is to assist research- ers, scholars, and students in making more sophisticated use of the information resources at their disposal, training them to be power users of information, rather than coddling an alleged inability to deal with complex information resources. And to achieve this goal, they should be work- ing closely with one another and with the librarians who serve this community. Indeed, the spectacle of venerable reference publishers seeking to cloak the richness and complexity of their scholarly content in a garb designed to lure the a ention of purportedly resistant young 464 College & Research Libraries September 2008 Net Gen users brings almost involuntarily to mind the doomed maneuvering and unhappy fate of Dr. Aschenbach. (If the allusion is unclear, try a search for the term in any of these resources.) So let us take a closer look at these col- lections. While a reader might a empt to familiarize him- or herself with books in a traditional collection by browsing, that function, although available here in all five of these resources, is much less likely to be used than a quick search, the same thing that is frequently likely to be used by someone who wants to quickly look up a bit of information. Hence, the entryway into all of these collections, by default, is a search for a single term, phrase, or combination of words. Sadly, as opposed, say, to the ProQuest database search, making an “advanced search” the default simply does not appear to be an option, even though that is what many reference librarians have come to emphasize and prefer as a more user-empowering ap- proach to helping users mine the content of a resource. All five resources begin with a single box simply labeled “search” (Blackwell, Cambridge, Credo), “basic search” (Gale), or “quick search” (Oxford); and, even if one chooses “Advanced Search,” one al- ways defaults back to this basic “bu on and box” strategy on the results page. None but Gale give any notion of what is going on, even though what is going on is not the same in every case: in the first three instances, a full-text search is being conducted, but in the case of Oxford, it is a search of metadata (titles, subject keywords, and possibly other elements). While the distinction between basic metadata search and the full-text search available on the “advanced” screen is a useful one, not every user of the Oxford resource will figure this out without us- ing the “help” feature. Gale also starts out with a keyword search, but it deserves high marks for radio bu ons allowing us- ers to choose between a title word search, keyword search, and full-text search, with the default being keyword. Reference librarians in bibliographic instruction sessions are often inclined to urge patrons to use an “advanced” search screen, as it is the easiest way of learning what options are available. A “basic” search box can be a black box in terms of the options available, and these collections are no exception. The syntax behind the simple box is at least slightly different in every instance, and it is some- times radically different. For Oxford, a simple Boolean AND, OR, and NOT scenario prevails, with nesting provided by parentheses and truncation with an asterisk, but as in other Oxford publica- tions, there is no user-imposed proximity operator, even when that might be useful in lengthier texts. Credo, by contrast, offers a very Google-like search syntax, with an implicit AND, a NOT indicated by a leading “-” sign, and an OR indicated by a pipe (“|”) but not, unlike Google, with an “OR,” and no proximity opera- tor. Gale, typically, provides the full suite of Boolean tools, not just AND, OR, and NOT, nesting and truncation, but fairly intuitive proximity operators, “w” fol- lowed by a number for direct order, and “n” followed by a number for proximity in any direction. Blackwell also offers an AND, OR, and NOT scenario, with nesting in parentheses, and a proximity opera- tor, a la JSTOR, which puts the terms in quotation marks, followed by a tilde and a number to indicate how many words may separate them. The la er feature, it should be noted, is documented nowhere in the “help” feature. Most troubling, however, is the automatic stemming that Blackwell imposes on search terms. A search for “orientalism,” for example, yields hits for “orient” and “oriented” and “orientation” as well! One can partly offset this egregious example of IT paternalism by truncating. A search for “orientalis*” will filter out much of the noise, but if you’re looking for the word “orient,” you’re out of luck. Please change this, Blackwell! Cambridge offers a similar suite of tools, but thankfully does not automatically stem, and adds a fuzzy search option, using a trailing tilde. Selected Reference Works, 2007–08 465 The Advanced Search options are equally varied. Gale, as always, adheres to the standard notion of an advanced search, with pull-down menu for each search box allowing search terms to be limited to a wide range of fields of the record—keyword, document title, document text, and much more, using the syntax described above to enter terms in any of the boxes and limiting searches to particular publication dates, publication titles, subject fields, or target audiences. Cambridge provides much the same scenario, with fixed boxes rather than pull-down menus. Credo, while providing a rich range of limiting features, by subject, book type, title, text field, publication date, and “entry feature,” continues its unfortunate reliance on Web search engine practice in its advanced search, with fields for “all of the words,” “exact phrase,” “any of the words,” “sounds like the words,” “with- out the words,” and so on. In current practice, this passes for a “more intuitive” way of presenting Boolean operators, when in fact it is a woeful distortion of the same. Imagine a search looking for ful- text material about police brutality. One might find texts with the word “police” or some permutation, “law enforcement,” or even “cops” occurring with “brutality,” “harassment,” or “profiling.” Since this “intuitive translation of Boolean provides for only one nested “or” box, one would have to do three searches to find what was interesting. And imagine, if one had to limit to references to “blacks,” or “Af- rican Americans,” or “people of color.” We begin to talk about a terrifying spiral of searches required to do what simple Boolean algebra makes childishly simple, all in the name of “intuitive” language. Oxford’s Advanced Search allows just one box in which one can search the full text, entry headings, people, or dates and limit to specific subject areas. Even more confusingly, it provides the option of choosing between Boolean searching, “Standard” searching, which will “find plurals and derivatives,” and “Pa ern” searching, which finds “exact or similar matches” to a search term. Blackwell’s Ad- vanced Search Screen, by contrast, refers in its “help” feature to Standard, Boolean, and Pa ern Searching, using Oxford’s language, but then offers Standard, Pat- tern, and Adjacency on the screen. And by making adjacency a separate radio- bu oned option, it does not allow it to be combined with other types of searches. Even more frustratingly, it has disabled its undocumented JSTOR-like proximity operation on this screen. In short, the diversity of ways of ac- cessing these five reference collections grows even deeper when we look at their advanced search pages. The likelihood that the average library user would feel comfortable using all of them is virtually zero. A final point of comparison is how the retrieved text is delivered, since, even if one has a good and powerful search en- gine, if the material delivered is abundant yet is laborious to use, the process may perhaps have been in vain. Even the most zealous researcher will not look inside 200 texts containing hits. Unless users retriev- ing multiple references from a rich data- base can quickly identify the records they need, there is li le point. In this respect, only Credo, which provides a keyword in context display of retrieved search terms is doing it right, while all the others force users to go at least one click further to see what they have actually retrieved. And, while Credo provides a “keyword in con- text” report, it does not offer highlighting of the term once one enters the full text. A Ctrl-f or Apple-f search is required to find the appropriate terms. Oxford provides an opportunity to narrow searches by a specific subject before one clicks on a link to take one to the relevant text, with search word highlighted. Blackwell provides a particu- larly admirable faceted follow-on search, allowing one to limit results by Subject, Place, Period, People, and Key Topics, re- flecting a great deal of cataloging and clas- sification that has gone on in describing 466 College & Research Libraries September 2008 the contents of the works included here. And, in the texts retrieved, just one click away one finds search terms highlighted in yellow. The Gale Virtual Library allows limiting to particular types of material within the text, and then a single link to the text itself. Cambridge is the least helpful in this respect. As in the case of the other interfaces, one has the possibil- ity to limit to a particular publication, but nothing more. More troublingly, however, the sought-a er content is very far away from the top. One gets a set of chapter links, and then a brief abstract if one clicks on the link, and only then the PDF with a highlighted indication of the search term if one clicks on that link. Finally, each of these resources offers various kinds of added features worthy of mention. Cross-references of various kinds abound in each. Oxford Reference Online articles typically provide multiple cross-references to related articles from within the text and offer a list of “see also” and adjacent entry links in the le - hand margin. The Gale Virtual Reference Library provides links to the sections of the reference book in question, such as table of contents, back of book index, and list of illustrations, hyperlinks to the author and reference work title itself, and, o en, a set of index links that refer to the same terms as were used to point to this article. Credo, while providing fewer in-article cross-references, does provide, in the le -hand margin to each article, hyperlinks to other works with the same index terms, related resources in a patrons library (determined by the site administrator), adjacent entries in the book, and links to the books’ prin- ciple navigation sections. Cambridge companion articles provide navigation links to other parts of the same book. Blackwell offers perhaps the greatest number of built-in cross-references, to items in the bibliography, to sections of the text, and to related articles, as well as a set of links to other parts of the book in the le -hand margin. It should be noted, however, that a noticeable number of the Blackwell references do not work, or take one to the incorrect location. Citation management seems fairly straightforward from Credo and Gale, at least for Refworks (although links are also provided for EndNote, ProCite, and Reference Manager). Cambridge, Black- well, and Oxford seem content simply to provide information about how to cite an individual article rather than offering a direct export to citation so ware. Another important innovation of some of these tools has been a facility for adding on links to other resources. A built-in fea- ture of Blackwell Reference is its automatic link to Blackwell Compass articles, essays relevant to the article in question, which help to place the topics in question in a broader scholarly context. Credo Reference allows a follow-on search for topics to re- sources within a subscriber’s own library database collection, with an easy inter- face for local administrators to identify which resources should be linked with which databases. A somewhat similar but slightly more complex tool is available at additional cost from Gale. Credo Reference has been especially am- bitious in its efforts to develop additional tools. Two of these include its “gadgets,” a special right-hand margin search box that allows one to do quick searches for defini- tions and name and place identifications, as well as other quick lookups. This is par- ticularly helpful for working with bilin- gual dictionaries. Another element, once somewhat more controversial perhaps, has been Credo’s concept map, which shows in a graphic way how concepts in one article relate to others in more distant articles, with a facility for jumping to the text itself. Add to this Credo’s enormous commitment to multimedia resources, and it is clear that this is probably the most adventurous and innovative of the reference publishers. Oxford, which also has some multimedia material, offers far less on almost any topic. In short, it is clear that each of these collections brings its own special contri- bution to the world of online reference Selected Reference Works, 2007–08 467 tools. Oxford provides a comprehensive collection of material from a single pub- lisher; Credo offers an even more care- fully constructed, innovative, and richly multiforma ed collection from multiple, if sometimes second-string, publishers; Gale has a flexible collection of subject encyclopedias from a variety of sources and the most empowering and intuitive user interface; and Blackwell and Cam- bridge give a set of the broad introductory essays so many of our users ask us to help them find. If a library sought to have just one online collection, it would probably be Oxford or, if the library were willing to work with nonfrontline materials but ones presented in an extremely innovative way, Credo. However, such a solution is clearly in no one’s interest. All of the publishers and works represented here are essential—not simply valuable, but essential—to the ongoing health of the average reference library. Forcing collec- tion developers to choose between one wholesale collection and another is clearly not an adequate solution. All of us want some titles from one publisher and some from another. This is, therefore, a plea to publishers (and to libraries as advocates to pub- lishers) for a clear separation between publisher and interface, something that is equally needed in electronic book and journal publishing in general. The model represented by Credo, and even more by Gale, is precisely what is needed here. If such a venture is to succeed, however, it will require collaboration among all academic publishers and their library clients.—R.H.S. Literature Cambridge Companion to Primo Levi. Ed. Robert S. C. Gordon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 205p. $85 (ISBN 0-521-84357-X). LC 20072293. Another addition to the impressive Cam- bridge Companion Series, this book is both a point of introduction to Levi’s work and a critical and interpretive anthology seeking to identify Levi’s significance in the “literature of [his] time, both locally and on a broader stage” (Introduction, xviii) by tracing the critical reception of his oeuvre and by situating him in different and sometimes contradictory contexts. Comprised of four parts—“Cultures,” “The Holocaust,” “Science,” and “Lan- guage and Literature”—the eleven essays in this book, wri en mostly by scholars of Italian literature and language or Ho- locaust studies, discuss and investigate Levi’s place in the literary canon and the problems posed in labeling him spe- cifically as a “Jewish” writer, an “Italian” writer, a memoirist, or a witness. Levi was a survivor of the Holocaust whose life and literary output were marked ir- revocably by the experience, but he also extensively wrote science fiction, poetry, short stories, reviews, essays on transla- tion, and essays on science (he was a chemist). The thematic organization of this book does well to cover and evoke this complex body of work, specifically from an English-language point of view. The Companion includes bibliographies of Levi’s works published in Italian and in English (U.K. editions), and great care is taken to reveal the o entimes inadequate or confusing publication of Levi in Eng- lish, with “significant cases of variation between English and Italian volumes” (“Guide to Further Reading,” 192), with much untranslated or partially translated material. Also included are bibliogra- phies of secondary works on Levi, both in Italian and English and delineated as books, collections, or articles; an index of references to works by Levi (with page entries corresponding to the U.K. edi- tions); a general index to the Companion; and a chronology of Levi’s life and work. The prefatory material—“References and Quotations” and editor Robert S.C. Gordon’s excellent “Introduction”—clari- fies the aims of the format and structure of the book, lending substantial authority to this companion as an overview and aid in the bibliographic and theoretical issues surrounding Primo Levi’s work.—B.W. 468 College & Research Libraries September 2008 Fine Arts Kara Kelley Hallmark. Encyclopedia of Asian American Artists. Westport: Greenwood, 2007. 281p. (Artists of the American Mosaic). $85.00 (ISBN 10-313-33451-X; ISBN 13: 978-0-313- 33451-1). LCCN: 2007000421. Ebook: Greenwood, $93.50. This is another in the “Artists of the American Mosaic” series, highlighting the lives and work of 75 artists “who have cultural connections to the United States and to one or more East Asian countries [and], [m]ore specifically… identifies those artists who are intimately connected to both cultures, by birth, immigration or ancestral connections through family.” (Pref). As with the volume on Jewish Ameri- can artists noted here in the September 2007 issue of C&RL, the Encyclopedia is presented as an A to Z arrangement of boldface names (see the Preface for the arrangement of traditional Asian fam- ily and surnames), with birth and death dates, country of origin or connection, and predominant artistic media, forming the headers above the line separating them from the biographical text. This is usu- ally three to four pages in length with a brief bibliography and a list of selected public collections in which the artist’s work can be found. There are black-and- white photographs of the artists and their work for most of the entries. Selected are visual artists who work within the realm of drawing, painting, sculpture, furniture making, wood carving, photography, printmaking, bookmaking, installation art, videography, documentary filmmak- ing, and performance art, among them Maya Lin, George Nakashima, Isamu Noguchi, and Yoko Ono. Consistent with other titles in the se- ries, there are an additional eight pages of color illustrations in a separate section in the center of the volume. A glossary of art terms pertinent to the 20th and 21st centuries and a selected bibliography of books published between 1989 and 2002 conclude the volume.—B.S.-A. The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture. Ed. Gordon Campbell. New York: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2007. 2 vols. $250.00 (ISBN 978-0-19-530082-6). LC 2007-000487. Ebook: Digital Reference Shelf, Ox- ford University Press, price varies ($275–$625). This is the second in a series of encyclope- dias to be derived from Grove Art Online. The first, on the decorative arts, was noted here in the September 2007 issue of C&RL. Like it, this is a two-volume printed work edited by Gordon Campbell that is also available electronically. It contains “more than 1,000 articles spanning the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome as well as earlier Minoan, Cycladic, Hella- dic (including Mycenaean) and Etruscan cultures.” (Pref.). These are a combination of original articles from the Dictionary of Art and Grove Art Online, to which have been added updated bibliographies or significant revisions, depending on cur- rent archaeology and scholarship. There are also new articles by Campbell and others, credited in the Contributors sec- tion in volume two, although the articles themselves are unsigned. The Introduction in volume one is important reading for understanding the uses of the word “classical,” for the chronological period outline, and for the current state of classical archaeology as a discipline. It is followed by an abbre- viations list of journal titles, museums, languages, place names, weights and measures, literary terms, and so on, and a Thematic Index of major areas of cover- age, such as archaeological sites, artists, and deities. As with other Grove art dic- tionaries and encyclopedias, entries can be short (such as Abaton, at three lines), or nearly monographic in length (for example, Architecture, Athens, Cyprus, Po ery, Sculpture). Illustrations are plen- tiful, with maps, archaeological site plans, photographs (some in color in a separate section of each volume), po ery figures, building elevations and sections, and re- construction drawings. There is the same Selected Reference Works, 2007–08 469 extensive indexing (using British spelling) as in the previous printed Grove diction- aries and encyclopedias, and a section for illustration acknowledgments. For reference librarians, as well as for students, scholars, and lay readers, this is an a ractive and easily accessible alterna- tive to the three million words on classical art, architecture, and archaeology that are to be found throughout the Dictionary of Art and Grove Art Online.—B.S.-A. Building and Design Jerry Yudelson. Green Building A to Z: Understanding the Language of Green Building. Gabriola Island, B.C.: New Society Publishers, 2007. 219p. $18.95 (ISBN: 978-0-86571-572-1). This small paperback seeks to acquaint those interested in green building—a.k.a. environmental design, green design, energy-efficient buildings, sustainable development, sustainable architecture, ecoarchitecture, environmentally friendly architecture and building, and the like— with current trends and technology in this rapidly growing area of concern for all sectors of society. Dedicated to “green builders and their supporters every- where,” Part I presents four chapters on “Green Buildings in a Global Context,” “Green Building History,” “What is a Green Building?” and “Becoming a Green Building Advocate.” Part II offers an introduction to green building terms (as Chapter 5), then pres- ents 107 alphabetically arranged terms (“Architecture 2030” to “Zero net-energy Buildings”); selective, certainly, but likely to be frequently encountered in the popu- lar media. Each is a page or two in length and o en illustrated with photographs, drawings, diagrams, charts, and graphs. They encompass topics that range from architecture and building construction to transit, biofuels, density, feng shui, global warming, green roofs, historic preservation, life-cycle costing, low-flush toilets, the ozone layer, low-VOC paints, New Urbanism, photovoltaics, recycling, water conservation, and Zen. Addressed to the “intelligent reader,” who may be a public official, building manager, real estate developer, broker or agent, or any green building enthusiast, the entries are not overly technical, but well informed on standards in effect as of 2007 by such bodies as the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Green Building Coun- cil, the National Association of Home Builders, and the American Solar Energy Society. The book is wri en in a conversational style, projecting a personal dialogue be- tween author and reader (as in his allusion to his wife’s sensitivity to VOCs in paint and his own childhood memories of inhal- ing the “new car smell” of the family auto- mobile). Similarly, the Resources section, which functions as a list of suggestions for further reading, is not rigorous, with cha y notes on why it is included (“this book walks the talk,” “amazing story of personal and organizational transforma- tion pulls no punches”), and lists books, “publications” (that is, periodical titles), and Web sites. The endnotes, however, do validate the information in the first five chapters and the entries and are derived from authoritative sources. The index completes the volume and continues to reflect the author’s genial approach: there is no definition or index entry for “outgassing” for example, but both exist for “unbridled enthusiasm.”—B.S.-A. Clive Edwards. Encyclopedia of Furnish- ing Textiles, Floorcoverings and Home Furnishing Practices, 1200–1950. Al- dershot: Lund Humphries, 2007. 255p. $150.00 (ISBN 978-0-75463-265-8). LC 2007931459. “The main aim of this book is to pro- vide a comprehensive reference work of products and their uses in the area of furnishing textiles, interior furnishings and floorcoverings used in domestic interiors. The emphasis is on British and American domestic textiles and furnish- ings, and the consumption of them over the period 1200–1950, although references are made to European and other cultural 470 College & Research Libraries September 2008 influences, especially to India and the Far East” (Introd.). The A to Z arrangement includes variable-length entries from “Abaca” to “Yorkshire carpeting,” with main head- ings and cross-referenced terms in bold type. Some entries have bibliographical references added as further reading, or references to original and secondary sources within the entry, for which full citations can be found in the 13-page bibliography at the end of the volume. Black-and-white photographs and il- lustrations are included on most pages, among them details of textile weaves and pa erns, products from trade catalogues, and other contemporary sources. One could wish for more color plates, given the importance of color in tapestries, textiles and fabrics, and for interior color schemes over the centuries; there are only twelve color plates on eight pages in the center of the volume. The author does, however, point out in his introduction that, “As this book is a history rather than a guide to identification, the reader is referred to the many fully illustrated works that show images of textiles and their usage.” The full list of figures and plates precedes the guide to use, introduc- tion, and entries. British spelling is employed in head- ers and text, resulting in such usage as “Fibre” (also “Fibrefill,” “Coir fibre,” “Glass fibre,” and other such terms), and numerous French terms are included, either established as the primary term, such as “Plisseé,” or, following the Eng- lish header, as in the example “Plush (Fr. Peluche).” The a ention to specificity and precision is impressive, and the cross-ref- erencing extensive. This work is easily a first choice for locating definitions, ety- mological sources, and relationships for and among terms commonly used as well as seldom heard. Its historical coverage is especially informative, as it encompasses the use of natural materials for most of the period, with synthetic introductions in the 20th century almost sticking out like sore thumbs: “Acrylic” and “PVC” among the “Linsey-woolsey” and “Toile de Jouy.” This is clearly a valuable resource for textile and decorative arts professionals and students, although anyone wanting to know what constitutes upholstery filling (“anything from pigs’ hair to seaweed has been considered as a possible contender”) is easily satisfied.—B.S.-A. Music Mark Ross Clark. Guide to the Aria Rep- ertoire (Indiana repertoire guides). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007. 607p. $75 (ISBN 978- 0253346681). LC 2006032174. This volume lists over 400 operatic arias from the standard repertoire by around 70 composers. Arrangement is by voice ranges: soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, bass, and baritone. Subarrangement is by the aria’s vocal fach, a subjective category describing a specialized vocal type within the larger vocal ranges. For example, for soprano, the fach are lyric coloratura, soubre e, lyric, dramatic coloratura, full lyric, spinto, and dramatic; for tenor, leggiero, lyric, spinto, and dramatic, and so on. Within the subarrangement, arias are listed alphabetically by opera title, although that is not specifically stated. Within each entry, the following factual information is given: aria title, opera title, composer, libre ist, duration, tessitura, and range. In addition, the author assigns a historical style and date: for example, Italian Romantic (1859), Classical (1790), Verismo (1896). The aria’s placement within the opera (act and scene), and several paragraphs of description of its se ing combine to give the user a good picture of what’s happen- ing around the aria. Publication informa- tion, including publisher, page of the piano/vocal score where the aria is found, and any performance information from the publication closes each entry. Four indexes close the volume: an alphabetical index, as well as indexes by opera title, language of text, and historical period. The author acknowledges the work of Selected Reference Works, 2007–08 471 contributors, including Regina Resnik, William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, and other major performers, voice teachers, and vocal coaches. Such input would ensure a strong consensus as to what comprises the “standard” aria repertoire, and this work provides an excellent guide to it.—E.D. Thomas S. Hischak. The Rodgers and Ham- merstein Encyclopedia. Westport: Green- wood, 2007. 384p. illus. $85 (ISBN 978-0313341403). LC 2007006500. Ebook: Greenwood, Netlibrary, and EBL, $93.50. Well-organized and informative work. Contains an A–Z listing of almost 600 entries on Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein (R&H) comprising all the stage, film, and television projects; vari- ous performers, songwriters, libre ists, and other artists who worked with either man; topics, theatre playhouses, and organizations that played an important part in R&H’s careers; and a description of 231 major songs they wrote together. Entries are detailed and can vary from 5 lines to 5 pages. For easy referencing, titles of works are given in italic, song titles in quotes. Bold- face is used within an entry to cross-refer- ence information that has its own entry. Full-name forms, with birth and death dates, are provided for individuals. To help the reader get a full under- standing of R&H’s creative work, the author provides a complete description of every musical, as well as events lead- ing up to them; the critical and popular reaction to them, their histories on screen, television, and in revival; and trends or models that developed out of them. A list of entries (including cross- references), a guide to entries by topic (Performers, Composers, Designers, Film studios, and so on), and a brief history of R&H’s work precede the entries. A chronological list of musicals for stage, film, and television; separate lists of awards and recordings; a bibliography; and an index complete the work. The author dresses up the strictly fac- tual elements with interpretive remarks (for instance, “every Broadway show is expected to include at least one love song”), which testify to his strong per- sonal interest in and involvement with the material. While it is possible that an information seeker might find this writ- ing distracting, this volume does provide a compendium of information to the creative work represented by R&H. A required acquisition for performing arts collections.—E.D. Sociology The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Chil- dren’s Issues Worldwide. Irving Ep- stein, gen. ed.; Jyotsna Pa naik, vol. ed. Westport: Greenwood, 2008. 6v. illus. $599.95 (ISBN: 978-0-313-33614- 0). LC 2007031312. Ebook: Greenwood, $109.99 per volume. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Children’s Issues Worldwide is an impressive six-vol- ume set that aims to provide a compre- hensive summary of issues related to the lives of children around the world. Ac- knowledging the decreasing importance of geographic boundaries in our increas- ingly global world, general editor Irving Epstein nevertheless chose to organize the volumes by geographic region rather than by theme, giving a nod to the idea of childhood as a somewhat social construct that has not been defined consistently across time and space. The Encyclopedia’s six volumes are divided by broad geographic regions (Asia and Oceania, Central and South America, Europe, North America and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, and North Africa and the Middle East), then by country. The country entries are further divided by subsections, which include: National Profile, Overview, Education, Play and Recreation, Child Labor, Family, Health, Laws and Legal Status, Religious Life, Child Abuse and Neglect, Growing Up in the Twenty-First Century, Resource Guide, and Maps and Indexes. The sub- sections were based loosely on the major 472 College & Research Libraries September 2008 themes presented in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is included in the appendix of the final volume. Each volume has an editor who writes an introduction to the volume, followed by country entries wri en by area ex- perts. Each volume has its own index, and there is a six-volume comprehensive index at the end of the final volume. There are some inconsistencies between the individual indexes and the compre- hensive indexes; readers may find the individual indexes more helpful. Epstein readily points out that the Encyclopedia is both selective and comprehensive in its scope—comprehensive in its coverage of the major issues facing children, but selective in that it necessarily leaves out countries for which social, political, or economic situations made it difficult or impossible to provide substantive and authoritative entries. Readers will notice the absence of comparative charts and graphs in this work, which is potentially a downside. Also missing are standard subsections on ethnicity and gender, whose examination is unfortunately limited by lack of a com- prehensive overview of these issues for each country. There is minimal coverage of issues surrounding maternal and fetal health, parental leave policies, childcare, or early childhood education programs, considering recent research that has shown these factors to have a direct im- pact on early childhood wellness. Ultimately, the strength of the Encyclo- pedia lies in its organization, which em- phasizes the importance of understanding children within the cultural contexts in which they live. While this resource will not be all things to all researchers, it is primarily recommended for academic libraries serving undergraduate stu- dents.—A.J. Anthropology Margo DeMello. Encyclopedia of Body Adornment. Westport: Greenwood, 2 0 0 7 . 3 2 6 p . i l l u s . $ 7 9 . 9 5 ( I S B N 0313336954; ISBN-13 978-0313336959). LC 2007016304. Ebook: Greenwood, EBL, Ebrary, and NetLibrary, $87.95. This encyclopedia talks about jewelry here and there, but its main topics are far more invasive kinds of body adornment, from ta ooing and ear-stretching to cos- metic and obesity surgery. It goes beyond any reversible interventions such as wear- ing jewelry and clothing. The main aim of the book is to provide in one volume “a single overall reference book that covers the breadth and scope of the field” and to take “a comprehensive look at body modi- fications and body adornments around the world and throughout history.” (Pref.) There are 207 entries alphabetically ar- ranged, with the main emphasis on North America. A separate “Guide to related topics” (xi–xiv) succinctly shows the scope of this encyclopedia. Each article has cross-references to related topics and a brief bibliography for further reading. The “Resource guide” (301–303) lists magazines (mostly relating to ta ooing), organizations, Web sites, and museums (here again, ta ooing-relat- ed museums dominate). A bibliography (301–317) contains sources mentioned in suggested readings in articles; it is an eclectic mix of books and articles ranging from Bakhtin’s “Rabelais and his world” to a recent book on obesity surgery. If you are interested in ta ooing, there are a number of books that cover the topic more thoroughly; but, as an overview of a wide range of body modification practices throughout the world and time periods, this encyclopedia can be a quick starting point. Recommended for public libraries and undergraduate collections.—J.S. Archaeology Encyclopedia of Archaeology. Deborah M. Pearsall, ed.-in-chief. San Diego: Elsevier/Academic Press, 2008. 3v. illus. $715 (ISBN 978-0-12-548030-7). LCCN 2007931569. Available online from Else- vier via Science Direct, $2,590. Contrary to the media image of the daring treasure hunter, the real-life archaeologist Selected Reference Works, 2007–08 473 is harder to pigeonhole. Archaeology in the twenty-first century spans a range of divergent philosophies and comprises many methodologies, specializations, and ethical issues. Hoping to “convey how archaeologists work, and to illustrate the diversity of is- sues and theoretical paradigms that drive our research,” editor-in-chief Deborah Pearsall conceived a conceptual frame- work for the Encyclopedia of Archaeology that distinguishes her work from other recent archaeological encyclopedias in both scope and content. Each of the two hundred and sixty articles she and her team have brought together fall into one of four categories: “Archaeology as a dis- cipline,” “The practice of archaeology,” “Archaeology at the beginning of the twenty-first century” (with breakdown by continent), and “Archaeology in the everyday world.” The result is a unify- ing focus on the contemporary practices, pursuits, theories, and findings of archae- ologists today. The Contents by Subject feature, which reflects the four-part underlying struc- ture, can be found at the beginning of each of the work’s three volumes and is a useful tool for the educated but nonexpert researcher who wishes to browse topics in a relational aspect. Each of the three volumes in the print edition also comes equipped with a user’s guide and an al- phabetical contents list. The articles them- selves are arranged in a purely alphabeti- cal order. Every article is signed, contains a glossary of terminology used in the entry, and includes cross-references and suggestions for further reading. Pearsall, who specializes in paleoethnobotany, enlisted expertise from around the globe to address topics ranging from cognitive archaeology to coprolite analysis, kill sites to cultural heritage legislation. The encyclopedia also is available online from ScienceDirect. The geographical categorization of peoples and places might be initially con- fusing to some. If looking for information on Angkor Wat, for instance, one should consult the index and not browse for it alphabetically. The Angkor complex of cities and temples does not have its own entry but is given thorough coverage in the entry “Asia, Southeast/Early States and Civilizations.” This arrangement, however, is both necessary and useful as it reflects how both archaeologists and human communities work: rarely in isola- tion but rather in the context of cultural and environmental influences. Thanks to this structure, one need not look up the Inuit and the Norse separately to learn about their interactions in Greenland. Overall, the Encyclopedia of Archaeology is quite an achievement and brings thor- ough, scholarly coverage of a sprawling field of study into three volumes. It is recommended for any collection support- ing upper-level undergraduate, graduate, or faculty research in archaeology. For archaeological biography or for entries devoted to famous archaeological sites and findings, Tim Murray’s two-part Encyclopedia of Archaeology (The Great Ar- chaeologists and History and Discoveries) is a good option. Libraries, of course, will want to hang on to the Oxford Companion to Archaeology for its perspective and scope.—H.L. New Editions, Supplements, etc. The fourth edition of the Dictionary of American Slang (New York: Collins, 2007; 1st ed. 1986 entitled the New Dictionary of American Slang [AC120], which was a revision of Harold Wentworth’s and Stuart Flexner’s 1975 Dictionary of Ameri- can Slang [AC135]) has been updated to include more terminology from the fields of drugs and sports. It also has added two appendixes: a list of “words for ‘drunk,’ ‘intoxicated,’ and ‘intoxicated by drugs’”; and a “guide to text messaging abbre- viations.” Michael Ferber has published a second edition of his A Dictionary of Literary Symbols (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 2007; 1st ed. 1999), which, ac- cording to the author, would be more accurately entitled “A Selective Dictionary of Traditional Western Literary Symbols 474 College & Research Libraries September 2008 and Conventions, Mainly in Poetry.” This extremely useful guide has added twenty new entries, revised some thirty more, and added new titles to the bibliography, including a unique listing of literary stud- ies by symbol (for example, studies on animals, birds, and musical instruments as literary symbols). The second edition of Sharon Propas’ Victorian Studies: A Research Guide (High Wycombe, England: Rivendale Press, 2006; 1st ed. Garland, 1992) is a more disappointing revision. The table of contents does not include page numbers, so the information is hard to locate, and there are some errors, such as a listing for the Annual Bibliography of Historical Literature instead of the Annual Bulletin of Historical Literature, and some odd listings: for instance, the Web site “His- torical Directories, a Full Text Guide to Trade Directories in England and Wales” is under the heading “History—indexes and annual bibliographies.” While this has some useful information, it should be used with caution. The second edition of John Lechte’s Fi y Key Contemporary Thinkers: From Structuralism to Post-hu- manism (London: Routledge, 2008; 1st ed. 1994) should help students understand modern literary concepts. The Brill Dictionary of Religion (Leiden: Brill, 2007) is a revised edition of the Met- zler Lexikon Religion (Stu gart: Metzler, 1999– ) translated into English by Robert R. Barr. The 500-plus alphabetically ar- ranged entries discuss specific religions, as well as related issues, such as the role of missionaries in colonialism and the religious response to conflict. The fourth edition of the Oxford Bible Atlas (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007; 1st ed. 1962. BC200) has added colored pho- tographs and larger and more detailed maps. The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007; 1st ed. 1985 entitled Encyclopedia of Un- belief) has added some new entries and revised others, including new ones on non-Western thought, and supplemented the bibliographies. New editions of the invaluable com- pilations of the series of works in the International Historical Statistics series have been published. The sixth edi- tions of International Historical Statistics, the Americas, 1750–2005 (CG70) and International Historical Statistics, Europe, 1750–2005 (CG189) and the fi h edition of International Historical Statistics, Africa, Asia and Oceana (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) will make quick fact- finding much easier. The third edition of the Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007; 1st ed. 1982 entitled Dictionary of Political Thought) has added entries on recent political theories and concepts. The New Encyclopedia of Africa (Detroit: Thomson/Gale, 2008; 1st ed. 1997 entitled Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara) has extended the coverage to in- clude Northern Africa and updated and revised a number of entries. The second edition of Landmark Deci- sions of the United States Supreme Court (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2008; 1st ed. 2003) has added discussions of 67 recent cases and has supplemented the older cases by adding 80 more, bringing the total to some 1,200 decisions. Congres- sional Quarterly has also published new editions of two works dealing with the United States presidency, the fourth edi- tion of The Presidency A to Z (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2008; 1st ed. 1992) and the Guide to the Presidency (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2008; 1st ed.1989 entitled Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to the Presi- dency). The A to Z guide is an alphabetical collection of brief entries, a “ready-refer- ence encyclopedia” to quote the preface. The new edition has updated entries to include some current events affecting the presidency, such as the a ermath of Hur- ricane Katrina and the war in Iraq. The Guide to the Presidency is a more substantial examination of the role of the President and has added two new sections, one on the role of the President in popular culture and one of the historical applications of unilateral power by the President. Louis Peake has complied a second edi- tion of his The United States in the Vietnam War, 1954–1975: A Selected, Annotated Bib- liography of English-language Sources (New York: Routledge, 2008; 1st ed. Garland Pub.1986. DE275). He has deleted some earlier entries that had become dated and added many new sources “to provide the reader with selected, concise, and factual interpretations of a large cross-section of the body of scholarship pertinent to America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.” On the scientific front, the tenth edition of Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley- Interscience, 2008; 1st ed. 1968. EA83) has appeared; it is also available online. It has added new entries and updated others “with special emphasis on the life sciences, space science, and computer technology” and has expanded the use of Internet resources in the suggested readings section. Selected Reference Works, 2007–08 475 Several supplements and continua- tions have appeared. The Encyclopedia of Social Work is, as of the twentieth edition, published in 2008, a copublication of the National Association of Social Workers and the Oxford University Press. The invaluable index to German literature Germanistik has issued a cumulated sub- ject index for the years 1995–1999. The Personal Name Index to the ‘New York Times Index,’ 1975–2003 is now complete in ten volumes. The 2007 Complèment Bibliog- raphie of the Dictionnaire Étymologique de L’ancien Français replaces the 1993 bibli- ography. Volume 2, the Social Sciences of The New Walford, the ninth edition of the famous bibliography, appeared in 2008. The fourth edition of Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart is complete as of 2007 with volume 9, the Registerband, which includes a subject index, brief bi- ographies of the contributors, and a list of illustrations and maps included in the mail volumes.—M.C.