College and Research Libraries Selected Reference Books o£1984-85 Eugene P. Sheehy his article continues the semi- annual series initiated by the late Constance M. Winchell more than thirty years ago. Al- though it appears under a byline, the list is a project of the reference departments of Columbia University's Butler and Lehman libraries, and notes are signed with the initials of the individual staff members. 1 Since the purpose of the list is to present a selection of recent scholarly and general works of interest to reference workers in university libraries, it does not pretend to be either well balanced or comprehensive·. A brief roundup of new editions of stan- dard works is provided at the end of the article. Code numbers (such as AE213, CJ34) have been used to refer to titles in the Guide to Reference Books and its supple- ments.2 DICTIONARIES Dictionary of American Regional English. Frederic G. Cassidy, chief ed. Cam- bridge, Mass., Belknap, 1985- V .1- . maps. (In progress) LC 84-29025. ISBN 0-674-20511-1. Contents: V .1, Introduction; A-C (clvip., 903p.) $60. Not only is this a work of linguistic scholarship and the fruit of dedicated co- operative effort, it promises to be a trea- sure trove for browsers and lovers of words. Concentrating on colloquialisms, regional usages, dialect and ethnic terms, and out-of-the-way meanings, "DARE does not treat technical, scientific, or other learned words or phrases-or anything else that could be considered standard'' (introduction). Vocabulary is derived mainly from responses to 1,847 questions in a carefully constructed questionnaire (reprinted in the introduction) adminis- tered by field workers in 1,002 communi- ties throughout the United States. "The aim was to choose relatively stable com- munities distributed according to the states' composition, and communities of various types [i.e., urban, large city, small city, village, rural], so that the aggregate would reflect the makeup of each state's population." Additional terms were drawn from older works (published and unpublished) and from the files of the American Dialect Society, a long-time sponsor of the dictionary. Entries (mainly under single words, but with many compounds and phrases) indi- cate parts of speech, variant spellings~ ety- mologies for words not treated in stan- dard dictionaries, geographical labels, usage labels, quotations with dates, and cross-references to related terms; treat- ment of pronunciation varies, and there is a lengthy "Guide to Pronunciation" (p.x1-1xi). Computer-generated maps (questionnaire responses were entered into a DARE database) accompany many entries; these maps indicate geographical distribution of usages and are "popula- tional" rather than "areal," so that state shape and size are distorted to reflect pop- 1. Mary Cargill, Anita Lowry, Eileen Mcilvaine, Louise Sherby, Sarah Spurgin, Junko Stuveras; Lehman Library: Laura Binkowski, Diane Goon, Debi Hassig. 2. Eugene P. Sheehy, Guide to Reference Books, 9th ed. (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1976); first supplement (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1980); second supplement (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1982). 68 ulation density. This first volume consti- tutes about one-quarter of the projected set.-E.S. PERIODICALS International Film, Radio and Television Jour- nals. Ed. by Anthony Slide. Westport, Conn., Greenwood, [1985]. 428p. $49.95. LC 84-8929. ISBN 0-313- 23759-X. This bibliography is only nominally in- ternational in coverage; of its 189 entries, 122 ~re for American periodicals, 41 are for British, and only 26 are for publications from other countries. These twenty-six, including only four from France, hardly justify considering this an international bibliography, and the work must be recog- nized for what it is: a selective list of ma- jor, and some of the not-so-major, English-language periodicals, primarily in the field of film. For each journal, a historical/critical es- say provides an overview of its genesis, development, orientation, and purpose, along with brief evaluative remarks; typi- cal articles and authors are frequently cited. The essay is followed by a list of in- formation sources indicating where the journal is indexed, where reprint or micro~ form editions are available, and which li- braries own the journal (holdings are not indicated); the information provided is se- lective and not comprehensive. A quite detailed publication history, showing title changes, volume and issue data, pub- lisher and place of publication, and editor for the entire history of the journal com- pletes each entry. Citations to secondary literature are included for some of the better-known publications. Each entry is signed. Appendixes 1 through 4 consist of short bibliographic essays on fan-club journals, fan magazines, in-house jour- nals, and national film journals. There are lists by country of publication, and by type and subject matter in appendixes 5 and 6. · A general bibliography and an index of names and titles also are included.-A.L. Union List of Victorian Serials: A Union List of Selected Nineteenth-Century British Serials Selected Reference Books 69 Available in United States and Canadian Li- braries. Gen. eds., Richard D. Fulton and C. M. Colee. N.Y., Garland, 1985. 732p. $103. LC 84-45390. ISBN 0-8240-8846-8. This finding aid is ''based on the list of · periodicals included in volume 3 of the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Liter- ature, with about one-hundred titles added in science and technology" -Intro- duction. Approximately eighteen hundred serials and cross-references are listed in al- phabetical order, with numerical refer- ences to The Waterloo Directory of Victorian Periodicals (Suppl. AE24) and the NCBEL (Suppl. BD83), bibliographic description and notes, and often shelf-checked hold- ings for each library surveyed. The list in- tends to include libraries with ''major Vic- torian serials collections, and those that are the major scholarly resource for a given geographical area.'' But coverage is uneven. Fifty-nine Florida libraries, in- cluding several community colleges, are listed, yet major research libraries such as the Newberry Library, Boston Public Li- brary, Dartmouth College, Princeton Uni- versity, and the universities of Illinois, In- diana, and Wisconsin are not. Meant to "clear up bibliographic questions on many items ... such as beginning dates, titles, and subtitle changes, inclusive se- ries dates, and concluding dates," the work provides little information not al- ready contained in the standard reference books, and occasionally, as for The Edin- burgh Philosophical Journal, provides incor- rect information. Although accuracy seems to vary with the skills of the volunteer surveying each library, the Union List of Victorian Serials contains much useful information about the holdings of selected libraries, particu- larly those that are not represented in the Union List of Serials. It can be used to sup- plement, but will not replace, the stan- dard reference tools.-S.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS Official Publications of Western Europe. Ed. by Eve Johansson. London, Mansell (dist. in U.S. by H. W. Wilson, N.Y.), ----------------------------------------------------------------------------~ 70 Collese ~ R.esearch Libraries 1984- . V.1- . (In progress) LC 83-22246. ISBN 0-7201-1623-6 . Contents: V.1, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Neth- erlands, Spain, and Turkey. 313p. $48. Useful both to librarians and research- ers, this is a handy guide to the publica- tions of the central and local governments of nine western European countries. A second volume is planned to include Aus- tria, Belgium, the Federal Republic of Ger- many, Greece, Norway, Portugal, Swe- den, Switzerland and the United Kingdom; thus, the set will cover the whole of western Europe. Each chapter deals with one country and in most instances is written by a spe- cialist librarian from that country. A chap- ter typically begins with an overview of of- ficial publications in the country, giving an explanation of the governmental struc- ture and a description of principal publica- tions. The government agencies responsi- ble for publication and distribution of documents are described in the second part of the chapter; a third section is de- voted to the means of bibliographic con- trol such as the national bibliography, sales catalogs, and library catalogs. Then follows a directory of relevant national , and special-library collections and ar- chives. Local government publications are dealt with in a separate section. Each chapter concludes with a bibliography for further study of public documents, listing items ranging from a government manual to historical studies of government pub- lishing; computerized databases· and data retrieval services are listed whenever available. Volume 1 includes indexes by organizations, titles, and subjects . An in- troductory essay provides a theoretical framework and offers practical advice to acquisitions librarians . While the Pergamon Press' Guides to Official Publications series offers volumes on certain Western European countries (and includes Vladimir M. Palic' s compre- hensive but dated Government Publica- tions), this two-volume set with its recent and concise information should be a valu- able addition to the library reference collection.-J. S. January 1984i BIOGRAPHY Banks, Olive. The Biographical Dictionary of British Feminists . Volume One: 1800-1930. N.Y., New York Univ. Pr., 1985. 239p. $50. LC 85-3110. ISBN 0- 8147-1078-6. The compiler's introduction identifies three major nineteenth-century traditions of British feminism represented in this dic- tionary: equal rights, Owenite, and evan- gelical feminism. Biographical sketches for 119 male and female feminists are listed in alphabetical order and range in length from several pages to a single column, including brief bibliographies. The Index of Topics lists the biographees under twenty-two subjects, "Abortion" through ''Working-class Women and Suf- frage .'' Articles appear to focus on personal or psychological aspects of the feminists' lives. Exact dates of birth, marriage, or death are rarely given, but many entries contain conjectures about love affairs and family relations. A long paragraph in the entry for Harriet Martineau is devoted to speculation about an early romance, but the title of a major nine-volume work, ''published between 1832 and 1834,'' that was ''an instant success not only bringing her financial independence but making her famous," is not given. Entries are sometimes inaccurate: Barbara Bodichon helped found The English Women's Journal, not the Englishwoman's Review, as stated. If Elizabeth Pease Nichol's name had been spelled correctly and not as Nicholl, one would easily find in the DNB that she was married July 6, 1853, not merely "some time in the 1850's .'' Although the introduction maintains that "no other biographical dictionary provides this kind of emphasis, and exist- ing dictionaries tend either to ignore femi- nists, or in some cases, to seriously mis- represent them," The Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals (Suppl. 2AJ39), which now covers the years 1770-1870, provides longer and more complete entries and bibliographies for most of the feminists active before 1870, including several not included here. Many British feminists, of course, were active af- ter 1870, and this book is recommended to those libraries unwilling to wait for publi- cation of the next volumes of the Radicals compilation.-5.5. Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reforma- tion. Ed. by Peter G. Bietenholz. To- ronto, Univ. ofTorontoPr., [1985]- V .1- . il. (In progress) LC 85-672492. ISBN 0-8020-2507-2. Contents: V. t A-E. $72.50. Conceived as a companion to the new edition of the Collected Works of Erasmus (Toronto, 1974- ), this dictionary pro- vides information about ''the more than 1900 people mentioned in the correspon- dence and works of Erasmus who died af- ter 1450 and were thus approximately his contemporaries, if it proved possible to trace and identify them" (preface). Be- cause of Erasmus' prominence and exten- sive contacts throughout the world of the European Renaissance, the nineteen hun- dred people included the major political, religious, and learned figures of the day; also among them were many less well known, even obscure, individuals, in- cluding friends, relatives, and acquain- tances of Erasmus. Given the wide range of people cov- ered, it is necessary that the amount and type of information provided here varies from entry to entry and is, in some cases, clearly indicated as speculative. For some figures, research uncovered little addi- tional information beyond that gleaned. from the references in Erasmus' writings. For others, information drawn from con- temporary sources, from diverse historical and biographical sources, and from more recent research, is brought together here. And for yet others-the major rulers, churchmen, and thinkers-who are amply documented elsewhere, the entries in the dictionary concentrate on their connec- tions with Erasmus·. Entries are signed and include bibliographical references (when available), notes about existing portraits, and references to appearances in Erasmus' correspondence or works. This dictionary will be particularly valu- able to the student of Erasmus, who will turn to it for information supplementing Selected Reference Books 71 the annotations in the editions of his works. Moreover, in the absence of a stan- dard biographical work for the period, it is also a unique biographical source for the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.-A.L. LITERATURE Major Modern Dramatists. Rita Stein and Friedheim Richert, eds. N.Y., Ungar, [1984]- . v.1- . (In progress) LC 78-4310. ISBN 0-8044-3267-8. Contents: V.1, American, British, Irish, German, Austrian, and Swiss drama- tists. 570p. $75. Constituting an addition to the pub- lisher's Library of Literary Criticism se- ries, this volume reprints substantial ex- cerpts from reviews, articles, and books discussing the works of thirty-five Euro- pean and American late-nineteenth and twentieth-century playwrights from Os- car Wilde and Arthur Schnitzler to Tom Stoppard and Edward Bond. Other Euro- pean playwrights will be covered in a sec- ond volume; Asian and African drama- tists will not be included. Arrangement is by country (or coun- tries, in the case of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) and playwrights are listed al- phabetically within geographic area. The compilers tried "to give an overview of the critical reception of the dramatist from the beginning of his career up to the present time" (introduction), by present- ing the excerpts chronologically. There is an index of critics, and a list of the plays mentioned in the excerpts. No biographi- cal or bibliographical sources, other than citations to the original articles, are pro- vided. The compilation is intended for un- dergraduate and graduate students in modern-drama courses and is a useful summary of major critical opinion.-M.C. Ward, Robert E. A Rio-bibliography of German-American Writers, 1670-1970. White Plains, N.Y., Kraus [1985]. 377p. $72. LC 84-17140. ISBN 0-527-94444-0. The author's proposed multivolume set, the Dictionary of German-American Cre- ative Writers, ceased after the publication of volume 1., Bibliographical Handbook (Cleveland, 1978), and Ward has compiled 72 College & Research Libraries the present volume from material col- lected for his dictionary. German- American literature is defined as ''that body of creative writing composed in the German language by persons of any na- tionality who reside or have resided in the U.S.A." (introduction). The book offers brief biographical entries of more than three-thousand authors, arranged alpha- betically. Each entry includes the titles and dates of ''as many literary works by the writer as could be uncovered'' (pref- ace), references to anthologies containing an author's works, and "references to im- portant works about the writers and their writings." A bibliography of books and articles discussing German literature is an added feature of the work. The volume should be extremely useful to anyone working in this field, but unfortunately the high price may discourage purchase by libraries without strong collections of the relevant literature.-M. C. PERFORMING ARTS Contemporary Theatre, Film & Television. Ed. by Monica M. O'Donnell. Detroit, Gale, 1984- . V.1- . Annual. V.1: 545p. $85. ISBN 0-8103-2064-9. Ostensibly a continuation of Gale's Who's Who in the Theatre (whose entries are cited in the index of the current volume), this work is, according to its subtitle, "a biographical guide featuring performers, directors, writers, producers, designers, managers, choreographers, technicians, composers, executives, dancers, and crit- ics in the United States and Great Brit- ain." That is a tall order, which this first annual volume does not fulfill. Biographical information is brief, usu- ally only a few lines, and incomplete; some entries have education and personal data, which may or may not include dates. Major film and/or television appearances are listed, often without dates, and almost always without an indication of the part portrayed. Photographs are included, seemingly at random. Addresses, usually of agents, are the only items consistently listed. The emphasis is on current per- formers, but again inconsistency seems to January 1986 be the guiding principle. Although the subtitle says that British performers are listed, not even actors familiar to Ameri- can audiences through ''Masterpiece The- ater" are included. This volume may be useful in libraries with a large number of readers wishing to write fan letters to current television per- sonalities; libraries needing a thorough, accurate, and reliable biographical direc- tory for the theater will have to look elsewhere.-M.C. Bryan, George B. Stage Lives: A Bibliogra- phy and Index to Theatrical Biographies in English. Westport, Conn., Greenwood, 1985. 368p. (Bibliographies and indexes in the performing arts, no . 2) $45. LC 84-19833 . ISBN 0-3132-4577-0. Bryan, an assistant professor of theater at the University of Vermont, intends this guide to supplement American and British Theatrical Biography (Suppl. 2BG22), Per- forming Arts Biography Master Index (1982), and Theatre, Film and Television Biographies Master Index (Suppl. 2BG20), and therefore has, with a few exceptions, excluded works already indexed in those volumes. The work is concerned with collective and individual biographies (including dis- sertations) in English, of people associ- ated with the stage from the fourth cen- tury B.c. to the present day. Approxi- mately twenty-five hundred works are listed. The 154 collective biographies are comprehensively indexed, but unfortu- nately, individual biographies, which make up the majority of the entries, are in- dexed only under the main subject. Look- ing under Gypsy Rose Lee, for instance, the reader finds a reference to Lee's autobiog- raphy but not to the autobiographies of her sister, June Havoc, which also have a great deal of information about Lee. Of course, it would be a monumental job to index, even selectively, more than two thousand biographies, but how useful it would have been!-M.C. SOCIOLOGY August, Eugene R. Men's Studies: A Se- lected and Annotated Interdisciplinary Bib- liography. Littleton, Colo., Libraries Un- limited, 1985. 215p. $30. LC 84-28894. ISBN 0-872-87481-8. Hasn't all of history really been ''men's studies"? Not according to August, who believes that ordinary men's social condi- tions and issues have been underrepre- sented in past scholarship-that in fact the very concept of masculinity has been lim- ited, distorted, and traditionally applied only to the politically and socially power- ful male minority. Furthermore, "men's studies are the logical complement to women's studies and a necessary compo- nent of any balanced gender-related scholarship" (introduction). This compi- lation attempts to provide the balance by listing English-language books in many disciplines that explore the masculine- gender role, from the treatment of fathers in divorce and custody cases to male-only service in the military. A classified arrangement covers areas such as single men, men and women, homosexuality, male midlife transition, literature, minorities, religion, psychol- ogy, biology, history, and humor. Entries are numbered and arranged alphabeti- cally by author within sections. The anno- tations are descriptive, often lengthy, and sometimes evaluative. Cross-references to entries appearing in other sections are in- cluded as a reminder of the interdiscipli- nary nature of many topics (e.g., works on homosexuality appear not only in the sec- tion so named but also in the literature, re- ligion, and men's-rights sections). There are author and title indexes. Works in- cluded run the gamut from scholarly to popular, from conservative to avant- garde, and the volume should therefore appeal to a wide audience.-D.H. Black Immigration and Ethnicity in the United States: An Annotated Bibliography. Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, Univ. of Michigan. Westport, Conn., Greenwood, [1985]. 170p. (Bibliogra- phies and indexes in Afro-American and African studies, no. 2) $29.95. LC 84-12886. ISBN 0-313-24366-2. The "new" immigration to the United States from the 1960s to the pre~ent has been a topic of considerable interest to so- cial scientists, and their literature searches Selected Reference Books 73 will be facilitated considerably by this work. Tao Lin Huang, a graduate student and research assistant at the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, has been primarily responsible for compiling and annotating the references in this bibli- ography. He has cited 1,049 books, arti- cles, government documents, disserta- tions, master's theses, and chapter essays published through 1982; about half have descriptive annotations. Arrangement is topical in six main sections: "Bibliogra- phies and Literature Surveys;" "General Works on Immigration and Ethnicity" (most published since 1960); "United States Immigration Legislation and Poli- cies," emphasizing the post-1956 policy developments relating to immigration from Africa and the Caribbean; ''Aspects of Black Immigration,'' including history, demography, economics, education, so- cial services, bilingualism, politics, and lit- erature; "Studies of Individual Groups," including Africans, Caribbeans (general), West Indians, Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Haitians; and "Select List of Works on Black Immigrants to Can- ada and Great Britain." There are author and subject indexes. While the in<;:lusion of Puerto Ricans might be questioned initially, the compiler notes that ''although not all of these immi- grants are regarded, or regard them- selves, as 'Blacks,' a significant propor- tion of them share varying degrees of African ancestry and have come from ar- eas with significant proportions of Blacks in their population" (introduction). De- spite irritating grammatical and typo- graphical errors, this is a useful bibliography.-D. G. Gilbert, Victor Francis and Darshan Singh Tatla. Immigrants, Minorities, and Race Relations: A Bibliography of Theses and Dissertations Presented at British and Irish Universities, 1900-1981. London, Man- sell (dist. in U.S. by H. W. Wilson, N.Y.), 1984. 153p. $37. LC 83-22185. ISBN 0-7201-1691-0. As indicated by the subtitle, this is a bib- liography of theses and dissertations ac- cepted at universities in Britain on the im- portant topics of immigrants, minorities, 74 College & Research Libraries and race relations, as well as the social conflict that stems therefrom. An intro- ductory essay by Colin Holmes gives a brief summary of immigration in Britain and provides a social context for the work that follows. The bibliography is divided into two sections: ''General and Theoreti- cal Studies" and "Regional Studies," both further subdivided by subject and/or country. Each entry includes author, title, degree awarded, the university or college, and the date of the degree. There are no annotations. Studies relating to smaller or tribal communities, Christian minorities in Europe, and studies of social minorities are excluded. There is a detailed subject · index and an author index. The compilers indicate that additions and corrections will appear in issues of the journal Immi- grants and Minorities.-L.S. Horak, Stephen M. and Richard Blanke. Eastern European National Minorities, 1919-1980: A Handbook. Littleton, Colo., Libraries Unlimited, 1985. 353p. $42.50. LC 84-25004. ISBN 0-87287-416-8. The authors of this volume plunge bravely into the morass of East European ethnic and national relations to provide an overview and introduction to the litera- ture of these relations, which in the twen- tieth century have had ramifications far beyond national boundaries. Modeled on Horak's Guide to the Study of the Soviet Na- tionalities: Non-Russian Peoples of the USSR (1982), this handbook consists of an intro- ductory chapter on Eastern European na- tional minorities, chapters on the minori- ties of each East European country (including one on the Slovene and Croat minorities in Italy since World War II), and a final chapter surveying nationality re- search centers in eastern European coun- tries, which brings together information not readily available elsewhere. Each chapter is wiitten by a specialist in the field and begins with a historical sum- mary. These essays emphasize statistics (with indications of their fallibilities), po- litical and economic developments, key events, etc., in telling the complex stories of minority-national relations, for which substantial documentation is provided in the footnotes; the copious statistics are January 1986 drawn from primary as well as secondary sources and are an especially valuable fea- ture of the handbook. Following each es- say, except the one on research centers, is a selected, annotated bibliography of books (an occasional article) in both En- glish and foreign languages; the annota- tions are useful in indicating the particular orientation and value of each source. There is an author and short-title index. Students and scholars looking for a broad and even-handed survey of the is- sues and literature or for an identification of major statistics and statistical sources will find this handbook a good place to be- gin their research.-A.L. Mcintosh, John L. Research on Suicide: A Bibliography. Westport, Conn., Green- wood~ 1985. 323p. (Bibliographies and indexes in psychology, no. 2) $35. LC 84-15706. ISBN 0-313-23992-4. After just a brief examination of this bib- liography, one is struck by the wide- spread, multidisciplinary and voluminous nature of the research on the mental- health problem of suicide. In the compil- er's own estimation, the guide is a se- lected list of basic, useful, En- glish-language materials published be- tween 1970 and 1983, with strongest cov- erage in the area of suicide survivors. Culled from diverse disciplines- medicine, psychology, sociology, social work, anthropology, law, philosophy, and religion-writings on suicide demo- graphics, prevention, education, ethics, survivors and ''gatekeepers'' are well rep- resented. Initial chapters cover bibliogra- phies, definition, theories, and historical background. More esoteric topics include meteorological conditions, mass suicides, suicide notes, psychological autopsies, and suicide in art and literature. Books, book chapters, journal articles, U.S. gov- ernment documents, and association pub- lications make up the majority of twenty- three hundred citations. Annotations are included for important items or for titles that are not self-explanatory; available summaries in other abstracting sources are noted. Recommended items are starred. The table of contents is often un- necessarily detailed and inconsistent, and the subject index could use some enrich- ment, but considering the variety and wealth of the material here, these are mi- nor criticisms. This librarian has already recommended the bibliography to several researchers in- terested in suicide among the young, a current and popular interest. The speed with which a new reference book is inte- grated into the mainstream is an overrid- ing factor in any evaluation of usefulness, and this bibliography promises to pass that test admirably.-L.B. HISTORY & AREA STUDIES Collins Australian Encyclopedia. John Shaw, ed. Sydney, Collins in assoc. with D. Bateman (dist. in U.S. by Hall, Boston), [1984]. 848p. il. $49.95. LC 84-156336. ISBN 0-00-217315-8. For libraries in which purchase of the twelve-volume Australian Encyclopedia (4th ed. Sydney, Grolier Soc. of Australia, 1983) does not seem justified, this volume offers an attractive alternative. It presents ''broad, yet representative coverage of topics in almost every field of knowledge'' (preface) as they relate to Australia, and it is particularly strong in natural history. Articles are unsigned, but a list of contrib- uting authors is included; suggestions for further reading are appended to many ar- ticles. Sources of statistical tables are noted; population figures are from the 1981 census. The many biographical en- tries include living persons, arid there are entries for urban centers with populations of more than two thousand; some smaller places of unusual interest also are in- cluded. Black-and-white illustrations ap- pear on nearly every page, and there are numerous color plates. Words in small capitals within articles signal see also refer- ences; there are cross-references at the end of some articles; see references from unused headings appear throughout the text. In addition, there is a subject index that groups the encyclopedia entries un- der fairly broad headings; additional cross-references would have been useful in this index. A number of useful appen- dixes complete this interesting volume.- E.S. Selected Reference Books 75 Dictionary of Modern Italian History. Frank J. Coppa, ed. in chief. Westport, Conn., Greenwood, [1985]. 496p. $55. LC 84-6704. ISBN 0-313-22983-X. In order to cover "the chief events, per- sonalities, institutions, systems, problems of Italy from the eighteenth century" (preface), Coppa 'and his contributors present short articles (one hundred to nine hundred words) on "the major Ital- ian political, economic, cultural, social, and religious issues ... [with] special fo- cus on the issues of industrialization, banking, regionalism, and political theo- ry," and include entries for newspapers, education, and the Enlightenment, among other topics. Each article is signed with the initials of the contributor and many of the longer entries include at least one bibliographical reference. The articles seem well written and the topics carefully chosen. Of course one could always quib- ble about selection and treatment, but there does appear to be a judicious mix of novelists, composers, political leaders, parties, historical periods, etc. There is a useful appendix with chronological lists of ministers, kings, presidents, and popes, and a very good subject index enhances the dictionary.-E.M. Franklin D. Roosevelt, His Life and Times: An Encyclopedic View. Ed. by Otis L. Gra- ham, Jr., and Meghan Robinson Wan- der. Boston, Hall. [1985]. 483p. il. $48. LC 84-25149. ISBN 0-8161-8667-7. The first in the publisher's planned se- ries of presidential encyclopedias, this publication is similar in presentation to Mark E. Neely's Abraham Lincoln Encyclo- pedia (N.Y., McGraw-Hill, 1982). The Roosevelt volume is, however, a collabo- rative work by a number of scholars and graduate students. According to the edi- tors the aim was ''to create for the reader a sense of Roosevelt's era, his political thought, and the problems that faced him as both a national and an international leader" (introduction). Signed articles on 321 topics, covering "ideologies and is- sues, legislation, federal agencies, politi- cal parties, interest groups, aspects of Franklin D. Roosevelt's personal life, and people of importance to him'' are the prin- 76 College & Research Libraries cipal content of the encyclopedia. Bibliog- raphies, which follow the articles, include archival and unpublished material, to- gether with brief commentaries on pub- lished works. A number of quotations from Roosevelt's speeches and writings are incorporated in the articles, and there is a generous number of photographs (which are fully indexed). Cross- references to related topics are often given at the end of an article. In view of the vast amount of material available on F. D. R., this work should serve as a starting point for many research topics, but the editors' aim of giving the reader a feel for the Roosevelt era would probably be met better by a well-written biography . (Alternatively, a classified subject or chronological arrangement rather than this alphabetical sequence of topics might have conveyed better the drama of the era.) This is an agreeable work to browse, and it offers good bibliog- raphies, but the reader should not expect incisive comments on controversial issues or penetrating analyses of Roosevelt's life and times.-J.S. Historical Atlas of Africa. J. F. A de Ajayi and Michael Crowder, gen. eds. Cambridge and N.Y., Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1985. 172p. map. $75. LC 83-675975. ISBN 0-521-25353-5. Fage and Verity's Atlas of African History (Guide DD41) was first published in 1959 and represented a pioneering effort in mapping Africa's history. More than ten years ago the general editors of this new atlas decided that definite advances in the way the African past is perceived, as well as the development of sophisticated carto- graphic techniques, justified a more ambi- tious work. Their determination to see this project to fruition will earn them the long- lasting gratitude of all Africanists. The strictly historical development of different regions is interpreted in a dynamic visual style. In addition, thematic maps to illus- trate geographic, climatic, demographic, linguistic, agricultural, political, eco- nomic, educational, and religious trends make full use of proportional symbols, density shading, numeric data, graphs, and diagrams. A page of excellent, de- January 1986 scriptive text, photographs, and drawings complements each of the seventy-two full-color plates. The credentials of the production are impeccable: the contribu- tors are all well-known area specialists and historians. The spelling of proper names and places has been standardized, and a detailed index concludes this in- structive and beautiful achievement.- L.B. Holmes, Lowell Don. Samoan Island Bibli- ography. Wichita, Kans., Poly Concepts, 1984. 329p. $85. LC 83-062482. ISBN 0-915203-00-6. Everything that could be found on Sa- moa is cited in this bibliography: books, chapters, and page references in books, periodical articles, newspaper articles (most from the New York Times and the Sa- moan Reporter), theses (both master's and Ph.D., mainly American), films, manu- scripts and archives, government docu- ments, and international-organization publications . Items are listed alphabeti- cally within forty-four subject divisions, some as broad as socio-cultural anthropol- ogy, others as narrow as cruises or philately. Works of all periods are included, as are all applicable languages, though most are English-language materials. There are some curiosities: why list only the 1968 U.N. Demographic Yearbook or the 1969 U. N. Statistical Yearbook with no indication that these are continuing series? Under "Politics, Government and Administra- tion" all U.S. government documents, whether published or in the National Ar- chives, are listed chronologically regard- less of issuing agency. Wouldn't research- ers find it easier to have all congressional publications or all State Department items grouped together rather than scattered through a list covering thirteen pages? The sorrow, however, is that there is no index-neither author nor subject. So much care and effort evidently went into compiling this bibliography that it's a shame a little more energy wasn't ex- pended to make a superb referenc~ source. Since the information is on com- puter tape, perhaps a program could be developed for producing an index vol- ume. As it now stands, a researcher with patience will find this an exhaustive bibli- ography. The price, of course, is unfortunate.-E.M. The Holocaust: An Annotated Bibliography and Resource Guide. Ed. by David N. Szonyi. [Hoboken, N.J.] KTA V Publish- ing House for the National Jewish Re- source Center, N.Y., 1985. 396p. $29.50. LC 84-26191. ISBN 0-88125-057...:0. A bibliography with an unusual twist, this is a useful resource for locating mate- rials and sources of information "related to learning about or teaching the Holo- caust'' (preface). The work grew out of the many information requests received by or- ganizations such as ZACHOR, the Holo- caust Resource Center. Section 1 com- prises the bibliography and is divided into three sections: ''Scholarship, Memoirs, and Other Nonfiction of the Holocaust," ''Literature of the Holocaust: A Selected Bibliography," and "Bibliographies on the Holocaust for Young People.'' Each section is further subdivided by topic (e.g., "Roots of the Holocaust" or "Fic- tion"). The entries include complete bib- liographic citation and a brief (usually one or two lines) annotation for the book or ar- ticle cited. Emphasis is on recently pub- lished (primarily 1960 and later) items in English, although earlier works are in- cluded when particularly useful. The re- maining twelve sections make up the re- source guide. It is this part of the work that may prove to be the most valuable, as it is the resource materials that are most diffi- cult to find. Each section is devoted to a specific type of resource, with annotations and addresses for further information. Some of the sections of particular interest are those on Holocaust-education centers, traveling exhibits, the development of curricula for teaching about the Holo- caust, and a list of Holocaust-survivor support groups. A subject and name in- dex would have improved the usefulness of this volume.-L.S. The Presidents: A Reference History. Henry F. Graff, ed. N.Y., Scribner, 1984. 700p. $60. LC 83-20225. ISBN 0-684-17607-6. More than a series of biographical sketches of the presidents, this volume of- Selected Reference Books 77 fers a chronological history of the presi- dency presented in the form of interpre- tive essays on the individual men who held the office, the events and develop- ments of each administration, and their significance in the course of American his- tory. Thirty-five professional historians and political scientists, "each a specialist on the president of whom he writes" (in- troduction), have contributed essays on chief executives from Washington through Carter (Harrison and Tyler, Tay- lor and Fillmore, and Garfield and Arthur are treated in pairs). Essays follow no rigid pattern, but typically provide an account of early life and prepresidency years be- fore concentrating on the time in office. Boldface headings in most of the essays highlight major issues and events of a career-a boon to the reference librarian in search of a specific fact. A bibliography is appended to each essay, and evaluative statements are incorporated therein; some give references to manuscript sources or to editions of writings of the president. An index adds to the reference value of the work.-E.S. Writings on American History, 1962-73: A Subject Bibliography of Books and Mono- graphs. Based on a compilation by James R. Masterson. Wash., Amer. Historical Assn.; White Plains, N.Y., Kraus, 1985. 10v. $1,300. LC 82-49027. ISBN 0-527-98268-7. Intended as a companion to the simi- larly titled bibliography of periodical arti- cles from the same period (Suppl. DBll), this set is meant to close the gap between the 1902-1961 series of Writings on Ameri- can History (Guide DB31) and the new se- ries of that title, which began in 1974 (Suppl. DB12). This is a bibliography of more than fifty thousand books and monographs "on the history, the geogra- phy, and the political, social, and eco- nomic aspects of the United States, its people, its government, and its institu- tions" (introduction). Citations are de- rived from Library of Congress catalog cards and include classification numbers and descriptive or contents notes as appli- cable. Entries are arranged in five main categories: (1) History and historians 78 College & Research Libraries (which includes subdivisions for bibliog- raphy, historiography, libraries and ar- chives, etc.); (2) Chronological classifica- tion (a general, multiperiod listing followed by twelve historical periods); (3) Subject classification (with subdivisions for cultural and intellectual history, his- tory of science and technology, transpor- tation history, etc.); (4) Geographical clas- sification (New England through Pacific, subdivided by state, plus a section for ter- ritories and dependencies); (5) Biography. An index of authors, editors and compil- ers, and one of personal names as subjects complete the set. Admirable as the intent of this publica- tion may be, the result is disappointing. As in the companion set for periodical arti- cles, the topical categories are too broad for effective subject searching, and there is no detailed subject index beyond that for personal names. Serendipity aside, there- searcher might more profitably consult the three relevant cumulations of the Li- brary of Congress subject catalog (Guide AA99) under a precise heading such as ''U.S.-History-Civil War-Causes'' rather than scan the forty-three pages of ''Civil War and Reconstruction'' entries in this compilation.-E.S. HISTORY OF MEDICINE McGrew, Roderick E. Encyclopedia of Medi- cal History. With the collaboration of Margaret P. McGrew. N.Y., McGraw- Hill, [1985]. 400p. $34.95. LC 84-17158. ISBN 0-07-045087-0. McGrew intends his dictionary of more than one hundred essays on medical his- tory to be both for students of the history of medicine and for the general reader. A historian himself, he writes clearly and without jargon, covering a wide range of topics from abortion and acupuncture to vitamins and yellow fever. For each entry the author gives a definition, then a chronological account of the history of the topic-including symptoms, characteris- tics, effects, attitudes, developments in treatment, alternate names-and ends with a short list of suggested readings. A topic must have a history in order to be in- cluded: thus, noAIDS, andforsomeofthe January 1986 more recent innovations there is no cover- age (e.g., the Lamaze method of child- birth). There are no separate biographical entries; however, some biographical notes appear in the articles when appro- priate. The detailed subject index is very workable; for the more important people whose work is discussed dates are given in the index entry. While this compendium is particularly well suited to the needs of the generalist, it will also be useful to the medical student and the scholar because of the way the ma- jor facts pertinentto each topic are assem- bled and presented, and for the brief bibli- ographies for further reading.-E.M. NEW EDITIONS, SUPPLEMENTS, ETC. For the second edition of the Harper Dic- tionary of Contemporary Usage, by William and Mary Morris (N.Y., Harper & Row, 1985. 641p. $22.50), the panel of "distin- guished consultants on usage" was in- creased from 136 to 166 persons, mainly authors and editors. As in the 1975 edition (Suppl. AD14), panel members' opinions on many controversial usages are ex- pressed in percentages of the total re- sponse, with individual comments fre- quently appended. British Literary Magazines: The Victorian and Edwardian Age, 1837-1913 (Westport, Conn., Greenwood, 1984. 560p. $75) is the third volume in the series of reference guides to literary journals, edited by Alvin Sullivan. It offers essay profiles on ninety magazines of the period (including titles such as The Cornhill, The Granta, and The Nineteenth Century), and lists more than two hundred other titles in the appen- dixes. First published in 1981, Stephen Rich- ard's Directory of British Official Publica- tions: A Guide to Sources is now available in an enlarged second edition (London and N.Y., Mansell, 1984. 431p. $60). Because an increased number of publications ''are being issued by government departments and other official organisations not pub- lishing through HMSO, '' the guide serves as a useful tool for "identifying publica- tions sources, publications listings, and giving contact addresses, and guiding the user around British official publishing" (introduction). There are nearly thirteen hundred entries in this edition. John W. Raimo's Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1978-1983 (Westport, Conn., Meckler, 1985. 352p. $45) is a "sequel" to Sobel and Raimo's compilation, which covered the 1789-1978 period (Suppl. AJ15). It provides biogra- phies of eighty-seven persons who held office between January 1978 and January 1983 and includes the work of seven con- tributing scholars. Subtitled ''A Biographical Encyclopedia of 5,000 Leading Personalities in the So- viet Union," Borys Lewytzkyj's Who's Who in the Soviet Union (Munchen, Saur, 1984, 428p. DM298) serves to update in- formation on Soviet figures included in the editor's Who's Who in the Socialist Coun- tries (1978; Suppl. AJ8). Following the al- phabetical arrangement of biographies, there is an extensive index section that lists, by individual republic and area of ac- tivity, the names of party, state, trade- union leaders, and office holders, to- gether with lists of authors, artists, and scientists. Although Margaret Drabble' s revision of The Oxford Companion to English Litera- ture (5th ed. Oxford and N.Y., Oxford Univ. Pr., 1985. 1155p. $35) has received widespread attention elsewhere, it merits mention here. While it retains many of the characteristics of Sir Paul Harvey's origi- nal compilation (Guide BD412), there has been considerable reworking of existing articles (virtually all show at least some slight revision) and much pruning of tan- gential matter, in order to accommodate new articles; new entries for many writers born before 1940 have been added. The appendixes, on "Censorship and the Law of the Press," "Notes on the History of English Copyright," and "The Calen- dar," have been retained. With the appearance of the index vol- ume (1985. 288p. $220), the sixteen- volume set of Variety Film Reviews, 1907-1980 (N.Y., Garland, 1983-85) is now complete. Arranged by date of publi- cation, the set reproduces all film reviews printed in Variety through June 1927 and Selected Reference Books 79 all reviews of feature-length films appear- ing after that date. Indexing is by film title only, with cross-references from English titles of foreign films. Gail Ann Schlachter's Directory of Finan- cial Aids for Women, 1985-86 (Santa Bar- bara, Calif., ABC-Clio, 1985. 380p. $35) represents the third edition of that title (see Suppl. CC196), with an increase of about 30 percent in the size of the volume. Programs no longer in existence or that have broadened their scope to include men have been dropped, and descriptions of continuing programs have been up- dated to reflect current policies and opera- tions. Paul G. Partington has published a sup- plement (Whittier, Calif., Author, 1985. 20p. $5) to his W. E. B. DuBois: A Bibliogra- phy of His Published Writings (1977; Suppl. CC135). It lists numerous manuscript arti- cles as well as additions to the bibliogra- phy of published works. . First published in 1962, The American Po- litical Dictionary by Jack C. Plano and Milton Greenberg (Guide CJ48) has now appeared in a seventh edition (N.Y., Holt, 1985. 606p. $15.95). Numerous articles have been revised and updated; entries for new terms have been added; and the text of the United States Constitution is now included as an appendix. Bill Wedertz's Dictionary of Naval Abbre· viations is now available in a third edition (Annapolis, Md., Naval Inst. Pr., 1984. 329p. $15.95). An attempt has been made to eliminate obsolete abbreviations found in the earlier editions (Guide CJ275; Suppl. CJ155) and make the work as up-to-date as possible. Following the precedent of earlier revi- sions (Guide DAS), the fourth edition of The Modern Researcher by Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff (San Diego, Calif., HBJ, 1985. 450p. $24.95) "presents new examples from recent events, titles of new riij{erence books, new uses of old meth- ods, and old uses of new devices such as computers, word processors, and data banks" (p.xi). Once again the work is available in paperback ($13. 95) as well as hardcover. The long-awaited third volume of War- ren F. Kuehl's Dissertations in History 80 College & Research Libraries (Santa Barbara, Calif., ABC-Clio, 1985. 466p. $58.50) is a supplement covering the period from 1970 to June 1980. Instead of the alphabetical author listing of the pre- vious volumes (Guide DA26), a classified arrangement by country and period, simi- lar to that used in the American Historical Association's Recently Published Articles, is employed. There are author and detailed subject indexes for the 9,905 entries. A. G. S. Enser's 1977World War II bibli- ography (Suppl. DA43) listed English lan- guage books from the 1939-74 period. His new compilation, A Subject Bibliography of the Second World War: Books in English, 1975-1983 (Aldershot, Eng. & Brookfield, Vt., Gower, 1985. 225p. $40) brings the record more nearly up-to-date and in- January 1986 eludes citations to many publications whose authors had access to documents of 1944 and later which became available for inspection in the Public Record Office un- der the thirty-year rule. The tenth edition of the Dahlmann- Waitz Quellenkunde der deutschen Ges- chichte; Bibliographie der Quellen und der Lit- eratur zur deutschen Geschichte (Guide DC121) has been appearing in parts since 1965. Now that the first two volumes are complete, a "Register zu Band 1 und 2" has been issued (Stuttgart, Hiersemann, 1985. 496p.). It offers indexes of authors, editors, and corporate authors, of per- sonal names in titles, and of place names in titles.-E.S. ACQUISITION PERSPECTIVES 2. Book House guarantees to order each book you request, with regular claiming to publishers. 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