James L. Harner

“ Prefaced by an admirably clear statement of editorial principles and coverage and replete with evaluative, well-written, information-packed entries, Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is the essential encyclopedia of the subject. ”

“ A collection of introductions to the interdisciplinary study of literature and linguistics, philosophy, religion, myth, folklore, sociology, politics, law, science, psychology, music, visual arts, and film. Although the emphasis varies from essay to essay, each essay typically outlines the nature of the relation, provides a historical overview, comments on important studies, describes major theories and approaches, suggests areas for research, and concludes with a selective, briefly annotated bibliography. A glossary covers all essays. ”

“ Because a dissertation is listed in only one section and multiple-author studies are placed under the first author mentioned, users searching for dissertations on specific writers must be certain to check the cross-index of authors, which is unhelpfully keyed to the numbered sections rather than to pages. The vagueness and inconsistencies in subject classifications and inadequate indexing mean that researchers must exercise considerable ingenuity to locate dissertations. ”

“ Journals can be browsed by discipline, publisher, or alphabetically by title. JSTOR has a growing list of primary collections and scholarly books. Search allows keyword searches of citations and full text. Advanced Search allows users to limit a search to one or more fields (full text, author, title, caption, abstract) , to one or more types (article, review, miscellaneous, pamphlet) , to a date range, to a language, to content included in an institution’s subscription, and to one or more publication titles or disciplines. ”

“ Three indexes: persons; titles; subjects (with works appearing in the lists of recommended studies indexed in only the last) . Given the principles determining placement of a work and the sometimes confusing organization, the subject index offers the best access to contents. Thorough in its annotations, usually judicious in selection and evaluation, and covering some non-English language works, Reference Guide for English Studies is a valuable complement to the present Literary Research Guide and a trustworthy companion for the novice as well as for the advanced scholar. ”

“ WorldCat is an invaluable resource for literary and linguistic research: using it, a researcher can identify separately published works about a topic (and, increasingly, articles and parts of books, thanks to the inclusion of tables of contents in many recently added records) , by or about an author, by a publisher, or in a series and—depending on the reported holdings of cooperating libraries—can discover what libraries hold copies and can expedite interlibrary loan by using WorldCat’s ordering subsystem. ”

“ Currently, ProQuest is the only vendor that allows cross-searching of MLAIB and ABELL (search Criticism and Reference; limit the search to Criticism) . Users can search by keyword, title, author and reviewer, publication details, journal title, and date; searches can be limited to the latest update, document type, or records with full text. Besides saving time, since users no longer have to integrate separate searches of the two databases, cross-searching provides the basis for a valid study of the overlap between the two. ”

“ Entries are organized by genre: poetry, drama, fiction, and criticism (with sections for essays and reviews; English, Australian, classical, and modern literature; anthologies and miscellanies) . Within each section, authors are listed chronologically by date of first publication in the genre. A typical author entry consists of a list of separately published literary works (and some editions thereof) accompanied by bibliographical notes and, for fiction, a one- or two-sentence summary; references to scholarship, bibliographies, and manuscripts ”

“ A writer is entered under her most commonly used name or title, with index entries for a married or family name used in her writing. Entries provide biographical details, a list (usually complete) of known works, and a brief assessment that sometimes includes contemporary critical comments. Unfortunately, unpublished works are not located. Indexed by names, periodicals, and a few subjects; entrants are also indexed in Biography and Genealogy Master Index (J565) . Fuller subject indexing—especially of genres—would improve the utility of the work. ”

“ An annotated list of fictional and nonfictional works that describe “a non-existent society . . . in considerable detail.” The utopias, dystopias, eutopias, and utopian satires are arranged chronologically by year of first publication. Entries provide basic bibliographic information, location of one or two copies of rare editions, and brief annotations on content or type of work. Two indexes: authors; titles. The annotations are too frequently telegraphic in their brevity, and the lack of a subject index hampers usability; yet Sargent remains the best guide to English-language utopian works. ”

“ Indexing is based on tables of contents (which are not always reliable) rather than on a perusal of articles and reviews, the names of authors are not regularized, keyword access is not based on a controlled thesaurus, some records lack full bibliographical information, and coverage of topics is haphazard. Users should remember that recent volumes are not indexed; for example, of the 1,061 journals listed under Literature in Index, fewer than 100 are covered beyond 1995 (with coverage rarely extending beyond 2000) . ”

“ An encyclopedia for the student of the cultures of the United States. Ranging across folk, vernacular, elite, regional, sectarian, and mass cultures, the entries (which range from 500 to 5,000 words and which are, for the most part, written by established scholars) use an interdisciplinary approach to a topic and its relation to American culture in encompassing such areas as communication, economics, ethnicity, the arts, gender, national identity, the environment, religion, and technology—in short, virtually any area of interest to the discipline of American studies. ”

“ Russian Reference Works, which emphasizes post-1970 publications, updates the coverage of Fundamentals of Russian Reference Work but offers few evaluations or comparisons. Entries are organized in three sections: general bibliographies, nonbibliographic reference sources, and subject bibliographies (humanities and social sciences) ; the humanities subdivision includes sections for book history, history, language, literature, philosophy, religion, and the arts. Because each subdivision is a static Web page with hyperlinks to subheads, users cannot search the entire file. ”

“ In short, Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database is an unsophisticated resource that relies heavily on automatic reproduction of cataloging records to populate its database and map searches; its chief value for literature researchers lies in its reproduction of reviews and ability to isolate works for children by subject, genre, illustrator, or prizes. Children’s literature scholars deserve a far more sophisticated resource. ”

“ The literature division includes sections for general works, criticism, drama, fiction, indexes, periodicals, poetry, and countries or areas. Entries are accompanied by full descriptions of content and locations of copies (principally in Caribbean libraries) . Two indexes: names; subjects. Although some classifications could be more refined and the coverage of parts of books is weak, English-Speaking Caribbean is an essential source for the identification and location of bibliographies treating the Caribbean (many of which are mimeographed works of severely limited distribution) . ”

“ Oxford Bibliographies Online are peer-reviewed, concisely annotated, expertly selected bibliographic citations. Each of the articles within a bibliography, written by scholars in the field, consists of an introduction that covers the history behind the field or subfield, followed by a categorized list of useful academic publications (e.g., introductions, textbooks, journals, handbooks and guides, reference works, primary texts or documents) and sections on debates and controversies, criticism, genres, and more. ”

“ The Waterloo Directory, a majority of whose entries are based on the actual examination of runs, offers the most accurate, complete accumulation of information on Irish serial publications. The extensive indexing makes essential sources for the study of nearly all facets of nineteenth-century Irish life and culture readily accessible for the first time. An indispensable work that supersedes all earlier bibliographies listing nineteenth-century Irish periodicals and newspapers and stands as an example of the kind of guide needed for serials of other countries and periods. ”

“ Despite the dramatic increase in accessibility to the post-1980 listings, a search of the printed subject indexes or online file must sometimes be supplemented by a reading of appropriate sections in the classified volumes. Although the number of index terms has grown steadily each year, many broad studies can be described in only the most general terms, and some publications, lacking a thesis or any discernible focus, cannot be given any descriptors. Subject indexing, at its best, is an imperfect art. ”

“ Internet Resources The proliferation of electronic journals and discussion groups, text archives, and informational World Wide Web sites; the accessibility of online library catalogs; the ability to communicate and exchange drafts of documents within seconds with colleagues around the world; the availability of online databases; and the possibilities offered by electronic publication—all mean that a literary scholar with only elementary knowledge of computers and the Internet is at a serious disadvantage. ”