Book Reviews 193 of the two-page definition for the word “abbreviation,” Beal elegantly exhibits the breadth of his knowledge by discussing the origin and use of abbreviations, how often they occurred and when, who used them and why, and alludes to the difficulty of reproducing them in modern, digital transcriptions. Each entry contains a depth of understanding that cannot be easily reproduced with such conciseness and, yet, Beal manages to do so with dexterity. Beal’s style follows a natural progres- sion of thought as he explores various facets of a term. His tone is casually aca- demic and rooted in a practical wisdom that comes from years of experience working with the material. Moreover, he does not refrain from discussing a term’s metaphorical manifestations, even play- fully, as when he describes Shakespeare’s punning of the word “gall” or Umberto Eco’s use of the word “palimpsest.” A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology is an essential guide to the terminology of post-medieval manuscript production and would be useful to a wide range of academic library users, includ- ing scholars of the Early Modern era, researchers working with printed and handwritten manuscripts, graduate stu- dents in the humanities, students of law, archivists, and special collections librar- ians. While the hardcover edition remains the more durable option, the newly issued paperback would be a welcome addition to any scholar’s personal library.—John M. Jackson, University of Southern California. Reference Renaissance: Current and Future Trends. Eds. Marie L. Radford and R. David Lankes. New York: Neal- Schuman, 2010. 312p. alk. paper $75 (ISBN 978-1555706807). LC2010-000229. Dedicated to reference librarians and sup- port staff, Reference Renaissance explores the changing reference landscape where new technologies are merging with traditional services. Editors Marie L. Radford and R. David Lankes took the theme “reference renaissance” from the conference of the same name and comment that this was intended to depict the most up-to-date reference work. The chapters in this work have been updated from the information presented at the 2008 Reference Renais- sance conference sponsored by ALA’s Reference and User Services Association and the Bibliographical Center for Research in Aurora, Colorado. Part I, “The State of Reference Services: An Overview,” opens the volume with a look at “Reference in the Age of Wikipedia, or Not” and a discussion between library educators and directors. Part II, “What Research Tells Us about Reference,” is divided into three sections: Virtual Reference; Approaches, Values, and Philosophy of Reference Services; and Innovative Service Models. Chapter 1 in Section II.1 looks at ways librarians can improve both communication and ac- curacy in virtual reference transactions and contains checklists of recommendations for facilitating communication in chat ref- erence including some relational barriers to avoid. In Section II.2, chapter 5 discusses the differences between systems-centered versus user-centered reference and how “by embracing its cognitive diversity, the profession of librarianship can better serve the full range of thought communities.” Section II.3 delves into innovative service models. Chapter 7 looks at access to library guides and the use of the Research and Subject Guides database at the University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries. Chapter 8 sums up Part II with a discussion of vari- ous reference service models such as tiered reference, roving reference, consolidated service points, and social software. Part III is devoted to “Reference in Ac- tion: Reports from the Field” and is divided into four sections: Virtual Reference; Search Engines and Virtual Tools; Innovative Models and Marketing; and Staff Develop- ment and Training. Chapter 9 looks at com- bining proprietary chat software with free chat services and chapter 10 discusses the AskNow Law Librarian Service in Califor- nia. In Section III.2, chapter 12 talks about using texting services and virtual tools like Google, Yahoo!, and MSN to enhance reference service at the National Library of 194 College & Research Libraries March 2011 Singapore. Chapter 14 describes Murray State University Libraries’ implementation of the Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) in which librarians choose the Web sites that are included in the index. Section III.3 contains four chapters on new reference service models and marketing collections. Part III concludes with Section III.4, which focuses on staff training models, including a co-mentoring program at Baruch Col- lege’s Newman Library. The editors mention in their Intro- duction that the reference renaissance “can be seen in the return to core values of service excellence in libraries and to the rising surge of innovative reference initiatives…” Based on the Reference Renaissance conference, the papers look at the way new information technologies have blended with traditional reference services in efforts to discover the “human process of questioning, contextualizing, and learning.” While the work serves as a good look at reference activities in 2008, in 2010 it misses the mark in the editors’ aim to “reveal an exciting and unfolding reference landscape.”—Nicole Mitchell, University of Alabama at Birmingham. G.G. Chowdhury. Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval. 3rd ed. London: Facet, 2010. 508p. alk. paper, $90 (ISBN 9781555707156). LC2010-013746. Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval by G.G. Chowdhury is designed for new- comers to the library profession who seek a broad overview of information retrieval (IR). In this third edition textbook, the majority of the content about concepts that drive IR technology remains the same as the previous edition with the addition of a few new concepts and technologies. Because of the broad nature of IR, most of the chapters only address the basics of IR and do not delve into detail. However, there are some large topics that are sur- prisingly absent in this text, such as the Resource Description and Access (RDA) cataloging standards which have been in development since 2005 to update the AACR2 standards. Social network tools like social tagging and reviews are also not covered—to be fair, Facebook was briefly mentioned. The average chapter is structured with an introduction at the beginning that consists of one or two paragraphs. A nice feature for the introduction is the last sentence, which clearly summarizes what readers can expect to find. Within the chapter, there is a logical progression of related topics. Many topics include bullet point lists that highlight the main points. The bullets may bother some readers because they are used so much, but this reviewer found it handy in most cases to quickly get to the meat of the topic. Chapters typically end with one to two brief paragraph “Discussions,” which summarize the main aspects, followed by a decent reference list that averages between twenty and forty sources. There is a modest index at the end of the book. Adequate graphs, figures, and images are appropriately included throughout most chapters to enhance the dialog within the book. One complaint about this edition is the quality of the screen- shot images; the screenshot quality is far better in the second edition. Many of the screenshots are so blurry that small and even moderate text sizes are unreadable, such as figure 12.3 NCBI Entrez taxonomy home page. A few more additional illustra- tions would also enrich some of the more text-heavy chapters like the “Hypertext and Markup Language” chapter. Although the chapters are not grouped in this manner, the first three chapters cover the basic concepts of an IR system, types of database systems, and main bib- liographic formats. Chapters four through eight cover the important process of cata- loging and analysis of individual items prior to retrieval, including metadata, classification schemes, subject analysis, indexing and organization schemes, vo- cabulary control, and abstracting. Chapters nine through twenty-two focus on the main types of IR systems: search and retrieval, user-centered mod- els and interfaces, evaluation of IR