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In 2015, as Americans worried about terrorist attacks at home and abroad, a disturbing new study showed that while 71 Americans were killed in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil over [...]

While serving as a brigade surgeon in the Canadian field artillery, John McCrae treated those wounded during the Second Battle of Ypres in spring 1915. After 17 days, and following [...]

Louis Shores. writing in 1939 in the second edition of his Basic Reference Sources, defined a reference book as any book which is used to refer to for specific information.' [...]

Last year brought a big change to the reference world: Encyclopaedia Britannica announced its exit from the print business, 244 years after its famous, eponymous work was first pubhshed. The [...]

Last year saw reference works aplenty showcasing individual brilliance and painstaking labor. Jacob Green's Dartmouth Medal-winning Dictionary of Slang (Oxford Univ.), for example, offers 53,000 entries totaling 10.3 million words: [...]

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS The American Beauty Industry Encyclopedia. Greenwood. 338p. ed. by Julie Willett. illus. bibliog, index. ISBN 9780313359491. $85. Online: ABC-CUO eBook Collection Willett (history and gender studies, Texas [...]

Somehow, the lyrics from the Ervin Drake song made famous by Frank Sinatra, 'It Was a Very Good Year,' kept coming to mind in 2010, despite the economy. While the [...]

America's subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 spiraled into a global financial crisis in 2008. For much of the year, attention was riveted on the presidential primaries. A worsening economy made [...]

It seemed that in 2007, everyone was talking about the 'subprime' mortgage crisis, which negatively impacted first the U.S. and then the world economy. No one wanted to talk about [...]

Whether in print or online or both, reference publishing had a wonderful year in 2005, as evidenced by the following list. This year we have altered our approach, combining print [...]

On September 23, 2004, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) was published after 12 years of preparation to almost universal acclaim. With close to 55,000 essays from 10,000 contributors, [...]

To paraphrase Mark Twain, 'rumors of reference's death have been greatly exaggerated.' Despite news from HarperCollins that Harper Reference would be merged into its adult trade division and a rumored [...]

In the December issue of Information Today, Tim Miller suggests that 'the World Wide Web reached its adolescence' last year. What began as a trickle in 1995 had all the [...]

In 2005, Internet users numbered more than one billion, almost 200 million of whom are from the United States. The Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that by the [...]

On April 18, 2013, PR Newswire announced that a survey commissioned by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) found that 'more than 90 percent of Americans polled said that free content [...]

Amphibians: The World of Frogs, Toads, Salamanders and Newts. Firefly. 264p. ed. by Robert Hofrichter. illus. bibliog. index. ISBN 1-55209-541-X. $44.95. Thirty-seven scientists from around the world explore, in essay [...]

Rollin, Lucy. Twentieth-Century Teen Culture by the Decades: A Reference Guide. Greenwood. 396p. Illus. index. ISBN 0-313-30223-5. $60. In the most entertaining reference book of the year, Rollin describes teen [...]

Violence in America: An Encyclopedia. 3 vols. Scribner. 1800p. ed. by Ronald Gottesman & Richard M. Brown. illus. index. ISBN 0-684-80487-5. $375. It's hard to forget the disturbing series of [...]

Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. Historical Encyclopedia of Nursing. ABC-CLIO. 354p. illus. Bibliog. index. ISBN 1-57607-086-7. $75. To describe the lives of noted healers in the context of their times, Snodgrass discusses [...]

Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. 15 vols. Yorkin Pubns: Gale. ed. by Anne Commire & Deborah Klezmer. illus. index. ISBN 0-7876-3736-X. $995. With five volumes completed and ten [...]

Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Basic Civitas Bks: Perseus. 2144p. ed. by Kwame Anthony Appiah & Henry Louis Gates Jr. illus. maps. bibliog. index. ISBN [...]

American National Biography. 24 vols. Oxford Univ. 22,968p. ed. by John A. Garraty & Mark C. Carnes. index. ISBN 0-19-520635-5. $2500. Historic perspectives change. This truism prompted scholars to replace [...]

The Smithsonian Book of North American Mammals. Smithsonian. 750p. ed. by Don E. Wilson & Sue Ruff. illus. maps. bibliog. index. ISBN 1-56098-845-2. $75. A strong candidate for the most [...]

Schultz, Ken. Ken Schultz's Fishing Encyclopedia: Worldwide Angling Guide. IDG. 1916p. illus. maps. ISBN 0-02-862057-7. $60. Anyone who has ever wet a line, heard a cork pop, or watched a [...]

Mattison, Chris. Snake. DK. 192p. illus. index. ISBN 0-7894-4660-X. $29.95. The cover subtitle, The Essential Visual Guide to the World of Snakes, accurately describes this detailed and dramatically illustrated exploration [...]

Olson, Kent C. Legal Information. Oryx. 333p. index. ISBN 0-89774-963-4. pap. $39.50. As part of Oryx Press's 'How To Find It, How To Use It' series, this examines not only [...]

The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford Univ. 892p. ed. by Alan Davidson. illus. bibliog. index. ISBN 0-19-211579-0. $60. This encyclopedia was 20-plus years in the making and will become a [...]

Mitchell-Jones, A.J. & others. The Atlas of European Mammals. T&AD Poyser: Academic. 484p. illus. maps. bibliog. index. ISBN 0-85661-130-1. $59.95. The primary intention of this atlas is to give as [...]

Purvis, Thomas L. Colonial America to 1763. Facts on File. (Almanacs of American Life). 381p. illus. maps. bibliog. index. ISBN 0-8160-2527-4. $85. The fourth in a series chronicling American history, [...]

Mellersh, H.E.L. & Neville Williams. Chronology of World History. 4 vols. ABC-CLIO. 3109p. ISBN 1-57607-155-3. $375. This comprehensive chronology spans from 3000 B.C.E. to 1998. The four volumes are arranged [...]

International Encyclopedia of Black Composers. 2 vols. Fitzroy Dearborn. 1273p. ed. by Samuel A. Floyd Jr. photogs. ISBN 1-884964-27-3. $270. From the early 1700s to the present, these 185 substantive [...]

McDarrah, Gloria S. & others. The Photography Encyclopedia. Schirmer. 689p. illus. index. ISBN 0-02-865025-5. $80. In 1839 Louis Jacque Mande Daguerre's photographic process was announced in Paris and reached the [...]

Hirschfelder, Arlene B. Encyclopedia of Smoking and Tobacco. Oryx. 411p. illus. index. ISBN 1-57356-202-5. $65. As Hirschfelder notes in her preface, 'tobacco holds a special interest for Americans and pervades [...]

Encyclopedia of the Solar System. Academic. 992p. ed. by Paul R. Weissman & others. photogs. index. ISBN 0-12-226805-9. $99.95. This reference guide to four decades of exploration and discovery of [...]

Encyclopedia of the Renaissance. 6 vols. Scribner. 2882p. ed. by Paul F. Grendler. maps. illus. index. ISBN 0-684-80514-6. $695. Spanning roughly 300 years from its beginnings in Italy around 1350 [...]

The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America. Univ. of Notre Dame. 988p. ed. by Michael Glazier. illus. ISBN 0-268-02755-2. $89.95. Almost 250 scholars from America, Ireland, Canada, and Britain helped [...]

Encyclopedia of Human Nutrition. 3 vols. Academic. 2175p. ed. by Michele J. Sadler & others. illus. index. ISBN 0-12-226694-3. $925. This study of human nutrition is an excellent example of [...]

Encyclopedia of Contemporary Spanish Culture. Routledge. 591p. ed. by Eamonn Rodgers. index. ISBN 0-415-13187-1. $140. The successful transition of Spain from a Franco-dominated authoritarian regime to a liberal democracy and [...]

Fonseca, Anthony J. & June Michele Pulliam. Hooked on Horror: A Guide to Reading Interests in Horror Fiction. Libraries Unlimited. 332p. index. ISBN 1-56308-671-9. $55. Horror fiction, one of the [...]

Encyclopedia of Deserts. Univ. of Oklahoma. 654p. ed. by Michael A. Mares. illus. index. ISBN 0-8061-3146-2. $49.95. From Aardvark to Zonda (winds in Andean Argentina), this alphabetical encyclopedia on deserts [...]

Distinguished Asian Americans: A Biographical Dictionary. Greenwood. 430p. ed. by Hyung-chan Kim. photogs. index. ISBN 0-313-28902-6. $65. As noted in the introduction, the Asian American population was the fastest growing [...]

Encyclopedia of Archaeology: The Great Archaeologists. 2 vols. ABC-CLIO. 893p. ed. by Tim Murray. illus. index. ISBN 1-57607-199-5. $150. These two volumes, which constitute the first of a two-part, five-volume [...]

Bird, David M. The Bird Almanac: The Ultimate Guide to Essential Facts and Figures of the World's Birds. Firefly. 460p. illus. ISBN 1-55209-323-9. $19.95. A well-known ornithologist has produced an [...]

Dalby, Andrew. Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More Than 400 Languages. Columbia Univ. 734p. maps. index. ISBN 0-231-11568-7. $50. This highly practical encyclopedia provides an overview to more [...]

American College of Physicians Complete Home Medical Guide. DK. 1104p. ed. by David R. Goldmann. illus. index. ISBN 0-7894-4412-7. $40 with CD-ROM. Two outstanding new home health guides were published [...]

Atlas of World History: From the Origins of Humanity to the Year 2000. Oxford Univ. 368p. ed. by Patrick K. O'Brien. maps. Illus. index. ISBN 0-19-521567-2. $85. Billed as the [...]

Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide. S. & S. 1288p. ed. by Anthony L. Komaroff. illus. index. ISBN 0-684-84703-5. $40. (LJ 8/99) Two outstanding new home health guides were published [...]

A RECENT SURVEY conducted for the Stanford-based Institute for the Quantitative Study Society found that one-third of 4,113 American adults surveyed claimed they were online for five or more hours [...]

We are living in time when the growth rate of information and the ease with which technological tools allow us to share it are unparalleled. Some describe this as the [...]

A February 2010 PEW Internet report revealed a significant increase in the use of social networks and wireless and mobile devices among teens and young adults. Information providers are going [...]