Editorial

Citation

Chalcraft, T. (2010), "Editorial", Reference Reviews, Vol. 24 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/rr.2010.09924aaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Reference Reviews, Volume 24, Issue 1

The editorial chair provides a useful vantage point from which to peruse the changing patterns of reference publishing. Putting aside the obvious and overwhelming move to electronic content, one of the most evident and fascinating trends is the way in which the reference world reflects and follows contemporary issues and concerns. With much of reference publishing still commercially driven and aimed at the core public and undergraduate library market, focussing on “hot” topics increases the chance of a product selling, if not like a proverbial hotcake, at least in greater numbers. Two of the “hottest” issues of our time are the looming global environmental crisis and the emergence of China as perhaps the dominant global power for the twenty-first century. Regular readers of this journal will have noted that almost every recent issue has featured several reviews relating to these topics and these columns are no exception. It is the commercial power of China that is propelling it to global heights, reflected in a new title from economics specialist Edward Elgar, the Biographical Dictionary of New Chinese Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders (RR 2010/22). From Oxford University Press we have The Oxford Companion to Global Change (RR 2010/34), an updated version of the acclaimed Encyclopedia of Global Change published just seven years ago. This joins a rash of recent reference publications on global/climate change, many of which have featured in these columns, such as Climate Change: A Reference Handbook (RR 2009/323) and The Complete Guide to Climate Change (RR 2009/171). Meanwhile, Scarecrow Press, who recently produced the Historical Dictionary of the Green Movement (RR 2009/63), has released the Historical Dictionary of Environmentalism (RR 2010/32).

Active environmentalism often leads to civil disobedience and while eco-warriors are not prominent in Sharpe’s Civil Disobedience: An Encyclopedic History of Dissidence in the United States (RR 2010/13), there is some coverage of environmentally motivated protest with, for example, an entry for Greenpeace. This two volume work is an important contribution to reference sources on protest in the USA offering coverage from colonial times to the present. Turning to encyclopedias more generally, we have the usual crop of multi-volume sets with Greenwood Press again the most active publisher in this format. Their three-volume The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Global Medieval Life and Culture (RR 2010/45) is complimentary to The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life through History (RR 2005/170) and its online equivalent Daily Life through History (www.greenwood.com/dailylife/historyinfo.aspx). Also from Greenwood’s international arm based in the UK is the two volume British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia (RR 2010/23). Entries in this set are not strictly confined to literature, with television series and films included in the coverage. Greenwood and ABC-Clio have joined forces under the slogan “better together” and some new titles previously announced from Greenwood are now being released under the ABC-Clio imprint. A product that predates this confusing development is ABC-Clio’s three volume Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora (RR 2010/44). This set clearly has parallels with the same publisher’s Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora recently reviewed in these columns (RR 2009/147).

Gale (Cengage) is another prolific producer of themed encyclopedias, but in this issue we focus on the group’s ongoing reference series in literature. Their output in this subject area is truly prodigious with the flagship Dictionary of Literary Biography and Contemporary Authors (RR 2008/304) probably the most widely known. As Bob Duckett outlines in taking a look at the 212th volume in the Nineteenth Literature Criticism series (RR 2010/29), the range of criticism and literary biography series is bewildering leaving, in my experience, even some of the company’s sales personnel baffled as to what is available and how the series are interrelated. Even more confusing is how the print series relate to the “bundled” electronic content, notably Literature Resource Center (RR 2007/229) (for a helpful overview of the coverage of this product and the various literature series see the company’s web site at (www.gale.cengage.com/LitSol/). Gale has also been active in collaborating with libraries in to create major datasets of primary source materials. The latest manifestation of this effort is British Literary Manuscripts Online c1660-1900 (RR 2010/24), with source libraries, including the British Library, National Library of Scotland, Brontë Parsonage Museum, The Folger Shakespeare Library and the Huntington Library. The database is released as part of Gale’s Literary Manuscripts Online Series, future releases of which will cover, according to the product website, “Renaissance and Medieval British writers, American writers and World writers” (gale.cengage.co.uk/controls/library.aspx?fileID=1041).

Dictionary of Literary Biography began in 1978 and Contemporary Authors in 1962, but both are mere striplings in comparison with the Aslib Directory of Information Sources in the United Kingdom which can trace its origins back to 1928. Now issued biennially under the Routledge label, in this issue we take a look at the fifteenth edition of this staple of UK reference collections (RR 2010/02), which remains, despite the absence of any electronic format, the most comprehensive overall guide to subject sources of information in the UK. Another longstanding publication is Giuseppe Schiavone’s International Organizations: Directory and Dictionary (RR 2010/17). This first appeared in 1983 and has now reached its seventh edition. Although not as comprehensive or as frequently updated as the behemoth print and electronic Yearbook of International Organizations (www.uia.be/yearbook), it is a far more affordable source for smaller libraries and offers surprisingly comprehensive coverage of the field. While highlighting ongoing reference sources, we should also note that one of the premier series of Scarecrow’s historical dictionaries, the Historical Dictionaries of Europe has, with the publication of the Historical Dictionary of Norway (RR 2010/48), completed its geographic coverage of the continent.

Another long running reference source is Keesing’s World News Archive (RR 2010/06) which began in the 1930 s and for many years appeared as Keesing’s Contemporary Archive, a title that still best encapsulates its mission to provide an archival record of contemporary events based on news reporting. The online Keesing’s is often overlooked as an information source, partly because of the relative ease with which “news” can be trawled from myriad internet sites. Keesing’s, and its US based counterpart/rival Facts on File’s World News Digest (RR 2008/254), remains one of the few “professionally” compiled international news digests focussing on current events/international affairs pitched at the library market. It is regrettable that access to this source is not more widely available; however, individuals (and libraries) should note that article and hourly/three hourly access rates also offered in addition to standard subscription access models

A resource with some parallels to Keesing’s, but with a different overall focus and audience is AlphaGalileo: Europe’s Leading Source for Research News (RR 2010/01). This news services aims to disseminate information from leading European research bodies both national, such as the French CNRS, and trans-European, such as the European Space Agency. Aimed especially at journalists and the news media, the site is also freely publicly accessible and provides a useful means of keeping abreast of major developments in a number of scientific fields. Another site emanating from Europe, but this time with a single state focus is Cinema Context: Film in The Netherlands from 1896 (RR 2010/36). The aim of this astoundingly ambitious resource which, it should be stressed “avoids images”, is to provide “data on every film, every cinema, every cinema owner and manager, every company that played anywhere in the Netherlands” from 1896 to 1960. Finally, while noting gratis web sites, mention should be made of The Classics Pages (RR 2010/41), a resource that compliments others in the field of ancient history recently reviewed in these columns such as Livius: Articles on Ancient History (RR 2009/292), and the increasing range of Web 2.0 type resources of reference application such as TeacherTube (RR 2010/21) and Biology-Online.org (RR 2010/31). The latter undoubtedly represent a further developing reference trend, one we will survey in future issues.

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