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.
5 comments:
I agree with all of Jane’s recommendations. Apart from that, I would recommend that we discard both the Encyclopedia of Learning and Memory and the Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreaming. The information in these books is based on research that is at least 20 years old. We’re doing students a disservice offering them such dated scientific material. They are far better off using article databases and reliable web sites such as those of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research and the National Academy of Sleep Medicine.
The same argument can be made for the Encyclopedia of Human Behavior and Encyclopleida of Human Intelligence. Although, I think there's a greater guilt factor associated with weeding out multi-volume sets. And do we really need two sets of psychology encyclopedias? Perhaps we should ditch the '94 Corsini set (b/c I'm certainly not going to recommend we purchase the update for $1200).
Honestly, I just went through these and I agree with what has been stated. The only item I'd question getting the update to would be Tests: A Comprehensive Reference for Assessments in Psychology, Education, and Business (4th ed, 1997, 996 holdings). It seems clearly geared to a professional demographic, not necessarily a basic consumer base.
GS says: I agree with Jane’s take on things. Way back when, both test books were used quite often but not so much anymore so I’m not sure about updating the Mental Measurements Yearbook. Are there really that many new tests around? I would assume that information about newer tests would show up somewhere on the Internet but that the older ones would be more difficult to find (except in print sources). If you want to have a chuckle, take a look at Test 101 in Mental Measurements-it’s Diagnostic Test of Library Skills, for high school students, pre computer era. Too bad there aren’t other books out there like Animals in Research. It’s one stop shopping for a given topic-all the articles you need for a research paper already compiled for you.
I am discarding Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreaming and Encyclopedia of Learning and Memory, since CH is right on this. Also I decided to discard both of the test measurement books, without reordering, since one is way too expensive for us, and the other turns out to be already unavailable. On to the 200s
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