Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Reference 100 Review


I have just finished going through the Reference 100 shelf. All my recommendations are in red.

It's a relatively small area that is made up largely of multivolume sets, all of which I think we should keep because they are classics in the field and widely held, although I'm not sure spending the money on the available updates is a wise use of our funds. They are:

Encyclopedia of Philosophy (8 vols, 1967 with 1996 suppl; 3770 holdings) - There is an 8 volume 2nd ed which is available for $1162 and was published in 2005 to wide acclaim, but Booklist warned "don't be too quick to retire your first edition..."

Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology (2 vols, 2001; 838 holdings) - Still in print

Encyclopedia of Psychology (Kazdin, 8 vols, 2000; 2324 holdings) - Still in print

Encyclopedia of Psychology (Corsini, 4 vols, 1994; 3631 holdings) - 2001 revision available for $1200

Encyclopedia of Human Behavior (4 vols, 1994; 1445 holdings) - Still in print

Encyclopedia of Human Intelligence (2 vols, 1994; 1422 holdings - no update, no longer in print

Encyclopedia of Ethics (2 vols, 1992; 1797 holdings) - 2001 update available for $820

Encyclopedia of Bioethics (5 vols, 2004; 1624 holdings) - still in print

Single volume works (these are all on the cart):

One Hundred Twentieth-Century Philosophers (2001, 724 holdings)

Encyclopedia of Learning and Memory (1992, 1465 holdings) - no update

Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreaming (1992, 1680 holdings) - no update

Astrology Encyclopedia (1994, 1593 holdings) - updated with 2nd ed in 2003 which is no longer in print

Oxford Dictionary of Psycyology (2001, 2346 holdings) - 3rd ed, 2009 is available for $18--I recommend that we purchase it.

Mental Measurements Yearbook (13th ed., 1998, 286 holdings) - 18th ed will be out in the fall for about $200. Tests: A Comprehensive Reference for Assessments in Psychology, Education, and Business (4th ed, 1997, 996 holdings) - 6th ed, 2008 is available for $69 - I recommend that we update one of these and discard the other, probably Tests because it is less academic and more accessible to our customers.

Secret Language of Birthdays: Personology Profiles for Each Day of the Year (1994, 1243 holdings) - no update--just a fun book you probably forgot about or didn't even know that we had.

Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist Theory (2003) - an extremely academic book that would be better off in circ.

Recommend discard:

Biographical Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1965)

Animals in Research: A Resource Guide (1995)

Let me know what you think. These are just my recommendations; I'm open to anything you have to say.