Editorial

Citation

Chalcraft, T. (2007), "Editorial", Reference Reviews, Vol. 21 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/rr.2007.09921faa.001

Editorial

In this issue of Reference Reviews two of the first three reviews are for products of the H.W. Wilson company. Of the two reviews one is for a relatively new database and the other for a Wilson stalwart that seems to have been around forever. Wilson OmniFile Full Text, reviewed in our columns in its Mega Edition (RR 2007/259), is the newcomer. It is now one of the company’s flagship products incorporating abstracting and indexing and full text where available from six other databases: Education Full Text; General Science Full Text; Humanities Full Text; Readers’ Guide Full Text; Social Sciences Full Text; Wilson Business Full Text. The other product is the electronic version of Children’s Catalog (RR 2007/257) which in its original print format has indeed been around for what in the information world is almost the equivalent of ever, that is 98 years, the original edition having first appeared in 1909.

Such is the longevity of some of the Wilson products that it is worth reflecting on a company that has survived for over a hundred years and continues to serve the reference and information world, especially the public and student libraries of North America which remain its strongholds. “H.W. Wilson” was Halsey William Wilson, who began in business as a bookseller at the University of Minnesota during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Frustrated with tracing books at a time when bibliographical control was in its infancy, Wilson launched Cumulative Book Index in 1898, a product that for just over a century functioned as the de facto US national bibliography until its cessation in 1999. Just three years later he initiated Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, for many years the only North American index to general interest articles in serial publications and a title that continues, despite the challenge of rival services from Ebsco, Proquest and the like, to the present day.

Wilson soon moved the business to New York, eventually settling it in the Bronx by the Harlem River. Here was built a headquarters topped by a thirty foot mock lighthouse sitting on a giant book, a symbol which brands the company’s products and denotes the mission established by Halsey William, “to give guidance to those seeking their way through the maze of books and periodicals, without which they would be lost”. Other early products apart from Children’s Catalog, all still going in various formats, include Book Review Digest (1905), The Reference Shelf (1907), Index to Legal Periodicals (1909) and Education Index (1929).

Today H.W. Wilson produces 25 full text databases, 25 index databases, eight abstract/index databases, five collection development databases plus various other services and reference monographs. Still headquartered in New York, since 1993 there has been a major office in Dublin serving Europe and providing staffing for a number of services, including the writing of abstracts for many of the products. Turning over nearly $60 million and with 500 plus employees H.W. Wilson remains a significant player in the reference and information business. A special feature dating from the early days is the employment of professional library and information workers. According to the “About H.W. Wilson” page on the company website (www.hwwilson.com/abouthw/abouthw.htm), on which some of the foregoing is based, the company employees around 150 qualified information professionals to provide the indexing and abstracting for its products. This is undoubtedly a main factor in ensuring the quality of its output which is generally above that of rivals where a more “freestyle” approach to indexing and retrieval sometimes appears to prevail.

Several other long established reference products feature in this issue of Reference Reviews. Perhaps the most popular of these is the Merck Index (RR 2007/287), almost a household name in the US and widely used elsewhere. A resource with ancestry even longer than any of the Wilson products is Gale’s new database American History & Culture Online: Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 (RR 2007/303). Based on Joseph’s Sabin’s pioneering Bibliotheca Americana: Dictionary of Books Relating to America from its Discovery to the Present Time this was originally published in print volumes over the period 1868-1936 and can be considered the first American national retrospective bibliography originally sitting alongside the current service provided by Cumulative Book Index. Another reference name with impeccable pedigree is Burke’s Peerage. There was a period when this title appeared to have been lost for ever, but the name resurfaced in 1999 and now the company has produced World Orders of Knighthood and Merit (RR 2007/301), one of the grandest publications ever to pass over the editor’s desk beside which other review books seemed shamefully shabby and outclassed.

Far from shabby is ABC-Clio’s well produced five-volume Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia (RR 2007/297). Other substantial printed sets reviewed include the third edition of Encyclopedia of Police Science (RR 2007/268) and the Encyclopedia of the Developing World (RR 2007/298), both from Routledge, and two from Greenwood Press, the ambitious ten-volume Dictionary of Medical Biography (RR 2007/284) and the pioneering two-volume Encyclopedia of Asian Theatre (RR 2007/291). There are other reviews that could be highlighted, but this column cannot conclude without noting the announcement of a new web project which, when complete, could stand alongside Wikipedia as a major free reference tool. Encyclopedia of Life aims to document the earth’s estimated 1.8 million animal, plant and other forms of life. The entries are to include written information, plus photographs, distribution maps and video and sound recordings. The $12.5 project will be led from the US by the Field Museum (Chicago), Harvard University, Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory and the Smithsonian Institution, but will have international contributors including the Natural History Museum and the Royal Botanic Gardens (Kew) in London. Further information, with helpful demonstration pages can be found at www.eol.org/ A review or feature article will appear in a forthcoming issue of Reference Reviews.

Tony ChalcraftEditor, Reference Reviews, and University Librarian, York St John University, York, UK