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Philosophy can be considered one of the “key” subjects, unlocking as is does much of the theoretical conversations that take place in other fields. It can also be a daunting proposition for librarians trying to develop a collection that is broad enough to capture the subject, yet deep enough to take users beyond a rudimentary level. Wayne Bivens-Tatum, the philosophy and religion librarian at Princeton University, offers a guided tour through the possibilities and must-have’s of a basic collection with advice for public librarians and advanced graduate subject specialists. With an expert voice and comforting reassurance, Bivens-Tatum examines the resources and explains not just what to collect but what makes each title useful. Readers who enjoy his clear insight can read more of his ruminations on libraries, reference, and the humanities on his Academic Librarian blog available at academiclibrarian.net. He can be reached at rbivens@princeton.edu.—Editor

Philosophy as an area of study is both circumscribed and limitless. As studied in American colleges and universities, philosophy is a very focused field. However, every subject has a philosophical aspect, and some use the term philosophy to mean an entire worldview. In this review, I am limiting myself to philosophy as it isstudied in the majority of philosophy departments at Anglo-American universities, that is, the Western philosophical tradition beginning with the ancient Greeks and developing as a more or less coherent body of thought revolving around a family of common questions.

Philosophers, like most scholars in the humanities, rarely seek research help from librarians. There are several reasons for this. First, rather than gather immense amounts of data or read large numbers of books and articles for their research, philosophers tend to analyze a few sources and arguments in great depth. Except for historians of philosophy, philosophers rarely need to do exhaustive searches for information or esoteric archival work because most of what they study is contained in a few books and journals with which they are already familiar. Students of philosophy are usually trained in philosophical analysis and are guided by their professors to both methods and sources of analysis.

Another possible reason that philosophers and philosophy students need less research help is because, for a relatively compact discipline, philosophy has a remarkably robust bibliographic and reference apparatus, and sources are easy to >find. The major index to the field is quite good and has competition. There are three major encyclopedias vying for attention, as well as a host of excellent reference tools developed by Oxford, Cambridge, and Blackwell presses among others.

In this column, I will address some major tools in philosophy reference, focusing on English-language resources. A librarian with access to all these resources should be able to address almost any research need in philosophy, as well as be able to identify philosophy titles necessary for purchase to build a comprehensive collection. I am including all the sources I consider necessary for a basic, solid philosophy reference collection, but I will note throughout what are essential for different levels of philosophy support.

Philosophy Literature

Philosopher’s Index

The Philosopher’s Index bills itself as the “world’s most current and comprehensive bibliography of scholarly research in philosophy,” and that is undoubtedly true. It has been the standard index for philosophy literature for decades. It indexes over 680 journals and claims to have over 450,000 records. Though it began in 1970, retrospective indexing goes back to 1940. It is published by the Philosophy Information Center and is available by subscription online through Ebsco, OCLC, Ovid, and ProQuest. If your library supports a philosophy department, this is a necessary index.

Philosophy Research Index

This index is brand new and is designed to compete with the Philosopher’s Index. At the moment, it indexes 360 journals in multiple languages, but its ultimate goal is to provide extensive bibliographic coverage of philosophy comparable to or exceeding the Philosopher’s Index and at a much better price. (The Philosopher’s Index was originally published by the Philosophy Documentation Center (PDC). However, the copyright was owned by Richard Lineback, and when he left the PDC in 1995 he took the Philosopher’s Index with him.) The PDC publishes numerous journals and tools, and with Intelex publishes POIESIS: Philosophy Online Serials, which provides searchable digitized content for journals otherwise available only in print. The Philosophy Research Index could eventually become the major index for philosophy. It currently claims to have 650,000 citations, which is more than the Philosopher’s Index, but in several subject searches I tried, the Philosopher’s Index came up with more and better results. For the time being, the Philosopher’s Index is still the top index.

PhilPapers

PhilPapers is a directory of online philosophy articles and books. Philosophers can submit entries, but it also automatically crawls 309 online journals, as well as articles posted to the websites of about 1,900 philosophers. Your library must have a subscription to access many of the journals, but it also links to open-access journals, online archives, and papers on philosophers’ personal websites. Thus, it will not only have citations included in the Philosopher’s Index and the Philosophy Research Index but preprints and other typically unindexed material. It currently claims to have 305,000 entries.

Intelex Past Masters

Past Masters from Intelex can provide online full-text access to critical editions of the works of many major figures in the history of philosophy from Plato to Pierce, sometimes both in their original language and in English translation. Each title is a standalone purchase based on FTE, with a low yearly access fee and discounts after a certain amount has been spent. Larger libraries may want to purchase the complete works of Descartes, Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein in their original languages. But even smaller libraries could benefit from smaller anthology collections such as The Continental Rationalists and British Philosophy 1600–1900.

Philosophy Reference

Dictionaries

Audi, Robert. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999 (ISBN: 978052-163136-5).

Honderich, Ted, ed. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. 2nd ed. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 (ISBN: 978-019-926479-7). (Also available in Oxford Reference Online.)

Every reference collection should have a dictionary of philosophy or two, and every librarian who collects for philosophy or works with students should have one handy. There are dozens of dictionaries of philosophy available, but I’ve listed the two best. My favorite is The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Like most other entries in this series, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy is an excellent single-volume reference work. It has short entries on most areas of philosophy, as well as biographies of many philosophers. Robert Audi’s Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy is similar, with some longer entries, and more coverage of non-Western thought. Libraries that can afford to should purchase both titles.

Encyclopedias

Borchert, Donald M., ed. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd ed. Detroit, Mich.: Macmillan, 2006. (ISBN: 978-002-865780-6). (Also in Gale Virtual Reference Library.)

Craig, Edward, ed. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2000. (ISBN: 978-041-507310-3). (http://www.rep.routledge.com)

Zalta, Edward N., ed. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford, Calif.: Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of
Language and Information, Stanford University, 1995. (http://plato.stanford.edu)

Philosophy is unusual in having three major, comprehensive encyclopedias competing to cover a relatively focused, though 2,500-year-old, field. All three are excellent in their way. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy is the 2nd edition of the 1967 Encyclopedia of Philosophy edited by Paul Edwards. The older edition was the standard for thirty years and is widely available in libraries. For some historical topics the older edition is still sometimes useful, but the 2nd edition is completely revised and current. It has longish articles with extensive bibliographies written by experts on every area of philosophy. It is also available online through the Gale Reference Library, but the print volumes are recommended if online is too expensive.

The same cannot be said of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Routledge Encyclopedia is outstanding and comprehensive, but while it was first designed as a print encyclopedia, it lives more naturally online. The entries tend to be shorter than the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, with many cross-references. In print, this means you really need all ten volumes in front of you, whereas online those cross-references become hyperlinks, making the Routledge Encyclopedia very web-friendly. Online, the entries are updated quarterly. The articles are written by experts in the field and contain excellent bibliographies. Highly recommended.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is possibly the best open-access reference work. It started under NEH grants and is now partially funded by an endowment created through contributions by libraries and philosophy departments all over the world. Expert philosophers are commissioned to write the entries, which are very in-depth with extensive bibliographies. It is not as comprehensive as the other major encyclopedias, partly because it is still a work in progress (commissioned but unfinished entries are included but have no content). Nevertheless, the content there is excellent, and it is freely available.

I have emphasized the bibliographies of these encyclopedias because for collection development purposes they are invaluable, especially if your library has no philosophy approval plan. Though it is relatively inexpensive to provide decent coverage for philosophy as it is practiced in mainstream philosophy departments (possibly twenty publishers and a hundred or so journals publish most of the content that most philosophers write and read), not all libraries will want even this minimal coverage. Others will want to make sure that subcategories of philosophy are well covered at their libraries, and the major entries in these encyclopedias will provide good checklists for books to collect, whether critical editions of historical philosophers in the original languages and translation or key titles for newer topics that might be of interest. (For free examples of useful bibliographies for collection development, see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries on “Cosmopolitanism” or “The Moral Status of Animals.”)

Most college, university, and mid- to large-sized public libraries should probably have the Encyclopedia of Philosophy or the Routledge Encyclopedia in print at the very least and preferably have both print and online versions. If your library is supporting a philosophy department, having at least one of them online is very useful. For others, the Stanford Encyclopedia alone might suffice, and you cannot beat the price.

Guides, Summaries, and Bibliographies

Blackwell Philosophy Companions, Guides, and Anthologies Blackwell’s philosophy reference collection is outstanding.

The Compleat Philosophy Librarian

At the time of writing, there are a hundred or so Companions and Guides relevant to philosophy. Each entry in those two series is a solid, thorough introduction to, and overview of, the topic at hand. Though there are a handful of guides to major philosophers such as Kant or Nietzsche, the bulk of both series cover major philosophical fields (ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, etc.) as well as prominent sub-fields (such as bioethics or medical ethics). The separate articles within the Companions and Guides are lengthy with extensive bibliographies. I would consider the print volumes of most of the Blackwell titles essential for any library supporting even an undergraduate program in philosophy. Some are more basic than others, and for the most basic collection, the Companions to epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, for example, would be more necessary than the Companions to early modern philosophy or Christian ethics, but I would recommend any that are relevant to your users. Most of the titles are available via subscription in the Blackwell Reference Online database, if that’s an affordable option. Blackwell Reference Online has one of the strongest humanities reference collections available. Though not reference titles as such, the corresponding Blackwell Anthologies make excellent complements to the Companions and Guides. A student interested in contemporary ethics, for example, and armed with the Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, the Companion to Ethics, and Ethical Theory: An Anthology, would be well prepared to begin serious study.

The Cambridge Companions to Philosophy

The Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion, and Culture series (of which about seventy-five or so titles are relevant to philosophy) provide excellent introductions to most major philosophers and some philosophical movements. Each volume has a series of essays on important areas of the philosopher’s work as well as useful bibliographies. If a student was interested in an area of philosophy such as ethics or aesthetics, I would suggest the relevant Blackwell Companion or Guide, but if a student was interested in a particular philosopher, I would suggest the Cambridge Companions. The two series complement each other well. The Cambridge Companions are available online via subscription through the Cambridge Collections Online database. The print volumes are essential for any library supporting classes in philosophy, but the online volumes are very handy to have for larger libraries.

Roth, John K., Christina J. Moose, and Rowena Wildin. World Philosophers and Their Works. Pasadena, Calif: Salem Press, 2000 (ISBN: 978-089-356878-8).

World Philosophers and their Works is Masterplots for major philosophers. The five volumes in this set provide extensive summaries, bibliographic essays, and lists of further reading for more than two hundred major works of philosophy. If you want a good, clear introduction to the main ideas and major themes of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics or Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, this is a good place to go. I would recommend it from upper high school through undergraduate use or for general readers who want to explore some philosophical classics. There’s an out-of-print 1982 set with more or less the same content, World Philosophy: Essay-Reviews of 225 Major Works, also from Salem Press. Most libraries could get by with either edition, especially since more current bibliographies are usually available in the encyclopedias.

Oxford Bibliographies Online

Oxford Bibliographies Online is another new product and is Oxford University Press’s first publication created only for the Internet. There are several modules available. The philosophy module currently has fifty-nine entries, ranging from broad topics like “Epistemology” to narrower topics like “Rule-following” or “Semantic Externalism.” Each entry is a lengthy annotated bibliography covering the major books and articles in the area. The organization and annotations are very well done, and the individual citations link to link-resolvers and Worldcat.org, and users can export citations or save them if they create an OBO account. A bibliography on a relevant topic would give an advanced student a full representation of the most important works to read and a librarian a list of the most important works to buy. If your library supports a philosophy graduate program, this resource is almost essential.

Philosophy Book Reviews

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews is a great source for reviews of philosophy books. Edited by a couple of philosophers at Notre Dame, NDPR has published a dozen or two book reviews every month since January 2002. The reviews are 1,500–2,000 words. NDPR could be valuable for philosophy students wanting to know more about a book before they read it, but for librarians its greatest use is probably for collection development. Because the reviews usually appear within six to twelve months of the book’s publication, they are timely, and the books they review should still be easily available. You can visit the site or sign up for an e-mail list.

Conclusion

If you want to be able to help users find literature on philosophical topics but have absolutely no money to spend, the two free resources on this list will go a long way. Between PhilPapers, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and possibly WorldCat.org, library users should be able to get a basic overview of many philosophical topics and a recommended list of reading, if not the sources themselves. As with most fields in the humanities, if you can identify a recent and relevant work or two from a solid journal or good scholarly press, then you should stop searching for a while and start chasing footnotes. PhilPapers and the Stanford Encyclopedia have thousands of current articles and recent bibliographies between them.

If you’re in a large public library with a philosophy reference collection, you can do a good job at general reference with relatively little cost. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is free online. This should be supplemented with either the Encyclopedia of Philosophy or the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (depending on the price). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy is useful and inexpensive as well.

For academic libraries, the recommendations depend on the scope of the philosophy department and the library budget. If it’s a small department with no graduate program, I would recommend the Philosopher’s Index, supplemented by the free PhilPapers. A healthy selection of Companions by Cambridge and Blackwell would also be good. Though philosophers get to most of their sources through other sources, occasionally they will need the standard index for their field. At least one of the major philosophical encyclopedias other than the Stanford Encyclopedia is a necessity, and both would be preferable.

For larger academic libraries and philosophy departments with graduate programs, the minimum desirable collection would include the Philosopher’s Index, all three of the major encyclopedias (though not necessarily all online), Oxford Bibliographies Online, the Cambridge Companions to philosophy, and the Blackwell philosophy Companions, Guides, and Anthologies.

I have deliberately focused on what I see as a core collection and have ignored a wide range of philosophy reference works, including works in languages other than English and works about non-Western philosophy. Most academic libraries should stock a range of more specialized works, such as Becker’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Ethics (2nd ed. Rout-ledge, 2001) or Post’s five-volume Encyclopedia of Bioethics (Macmillan, 2004), to name just a couple. For a comprehensive overview of philosophical reference works, see Hans Bynagle’s Philosophy: A Guide to the Reference Literature (3rd ed. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 2006). Its 389 pages and 866 entries will take you more deeply into the philosophy reference literature than most libraries are ever likely to want or need to go.

Correspondence concerning this column should be addressed to Neal Wyatt, The Alert Collector, c/o RUSA, 50 E. Huron, Chicago, IL 60611; e-mail: alertcollector@comcast.net. Wyatt is a collection development and readers’ advisory librarian from Virginia. She wrote The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Nonfiction (ALA Editions, 2007), is the editor of Library Journal’s “Reader’s Shelf” column, author of Booksmack!’s “RA Crossroads” whole collection RA column, and compiles LJ’s weekly “Wyatt’s World Lists.”

Wayne Bivens-Tatum is the Philosophy and Religion Librarian at Princeton University.

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As the crafting trend continues apace, knitting remains very popular as the seemingly endless number of titles published on the subject, in print and online, can attest. How do we know which books and resources will best serve our patrons, and where do we turn for guidance and hands-on (as it were) reviews? Kathleen Collins, the coordinator of Reference Services for the Odegaard Undergraduate Library at the University of Washington (UW) and a sociology subject librarian and children’s and young adult literature librarian for the UW Libraries, offers thirty-eight resources that can create and support a knitting core collection. Collins taught herself to knit fifteen years ago from library books. Her guides were Maggie Righetti’s Knitting in Plain English, Barbara Walker’s Learn-to-Knit Afghan Book, and a small pamphlet she’s long since lost. She currently has a shelf full of knitting books, three hampers’ worth of yarn stash, and six projects in progress on the needles.—Editor

Hand-knitting has a long social history; the earliest known knitted garments are cotton sock fragments found in Egypt and dated to about two thousand years ago. With the invention of the knitting machine and the industrialization of cloth and garment manufacture, knitting at home became less of a necessity and more of a craft, and as such it has gone in and out of vogue many times in the two centuries since the Industrial Revolution. During the last decade it has enjoyed a particularly vigorous revival, and women (and some men) both young and old can frequently be seen knitting in public—on buses and in coffee shops, in book groups and at ALA conferences.

Periodic surveys conducted by the Craft Yarn Council of America indicate that in the last ten years the number of new knitters has grown by large numbers. An increasing number of those new to knitting, while continuing to rely on printed materials and drawing inspiration from the knitting giants of previous generations (Elizabeth Zimmermann, Barbara Walker, Kaffe Fassett), also turn to the Internet for knitting inspiration. Online magazines, knitting blogs, and social networking groups have become the cradle for a new generation of knitting designers.

This column is, first and foremost, an attempt to reflect the wide and wired world of contemporary knitting and to recommend to public libraries a selection of knitting resources that highlight the major knitting authors, techniques, and trends from the past decade. As such, the emphasis of the core collection presented here is on breadth rather than depth—major trends like felting are represented by a single book—and on profiles rather than patterns. After all, the new-wave knitter well knows that he or she can supplement the printed project books available in the library with additional resources from the web.

Websites

Knitty.com
Amy Singer founded this influential web-only magazine “with a sense of humor and absolutely no doily patterns” in 2002. Each quarterly issue contains projects by up-and-coming designers (difficulty ratings range playfully from mellow, to tangy, to piquant, to extra spicy), feature articles, and a “Cool Stuff” column that reviews books, yarns, tools, and accessories.

Ravelry.com
The Facebook of the fiber crowd launched in 2007 and now has 1 million members. Ravelry provides a place for knitters to keep track of their yarn stashes, needles, projects, and patterns. In the patterns section users can see how a particular design looks when made by real knitters using different yarns. Members can follow favorite designers and interact with other knitters on forums like “RaveLibrarians” and “Sheepless in Seattle.” The site requires a log-in, but membership is free.

Knitter’s Review
Clara Parkes, the author of The Knitter’s Book of Yarn, writes this high-quality site of frank and in-depth yarn, book, and tool reviews, how-to tips, and active user forums. It is updated weekly, and readers can sign up to receive the free weekly newsletter via e-mail or RSS feed. Archives stretch back to 2000, making this the grandmother of online knitting sites.

Magazines

Cast On. Zanesville, Ohio: Knitting Guild Association, 1984–. 5/year. (ISSN: 1557–573X). www.tkga.com.
The official publication of The Knitting Guild Association (formerly The Knitting Guild of America) contains the usual projects, but the teaching articles (about six in each issue) make it really stand out from other knitting magazines. The emphasis on clearly presented instructions makes it particularly useful for those learning to knit.

Interweave Knits. Loveland, Colo.: Interweave, 1996– Quarterly. (ISSN: 1088–3622). www.interweaveknits.com.
This magazine stands out from its competitors because of its particularly exciting projects—twenty or more in each issue, plus three to five feature articles profiling designers and discussing knitting trends and techniques.

Reference Works

Epstein, Nicky. Knitting on the Edge: Ribs, Ruffles, Lace, Fringes, Flora, Points and Picots: The Essential Collection of 350 Decorative Borders. New York: Sixth & Spring, 2004 (ISBN: 978-1-93154-340-8).
The perfect complement to more traditional stitch dictionaries, Epstein’s thorough exploration of edgings invites the knitter to get creative in embellishing projects. Amazing photography and simple instructions enhance the usability of this excellent and inviting reference book. Epstein’s follow-ups include Knitting Over the Edge (2005) and Knitting Beyond the Edge (2006).

Harmony Guides series. Loveland, Colo.: Interweave, 2007–9. Knight, Erika. Knit & Purl: 250 Stitches to Knit. (ISBN: 978-1-5966-8056-2); Knight, Erika. Cables and Arans: 250 Stitches to Knit. (ISBN: 978-1-5966-8058-6); Knight, Erika. Lace and Eyelets: 250 Stitches to Knit. (ISBN: 978-1-5966-8057-9); Haxell, Kate. Knit Edgings and Trims: 150 Stitches. (ISBN: 978-1-5966-8173-6); Brant, Sharon. Colorwork Stitches: 250 Designs to Knit. Loveland, Colo.: Interweave, 2009. (ISBN: 978-1-5966-8147-7).
This handsome set supplements the classic volumes in Barbara Walker’s Treasury of Knitting Stitches. Each page shows one or two stitch patterns, accompanied by full-color photographs illustrating the completed swatches. General tips sprinkled throughout the volumes are marked by a yarn ball icon. Each volume has a brief index to the stitches—something that many stitch dictionaries neglect. Essential for all libraries that do not already own the older Harmony Guides or the competing five-volume Vogue Stitchionaries.

Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book. New York: Sixth and Spring, 2002 (ISBN: 978-1-9315-4316-3).
This fat reference book is a comprehensive guide to knitting, covering basic and advanced techniques, and needles and other supplies. It includes a dictionary of common stitches, fixes for common problems, and much more. Beginning knitters may be intimidated by its size and scope, but those who have mastered the basics will value Vogue Knitting’s encyclopedic coverage.

Knitting Design and Technique

Budd, Ann. The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns: Basic Designs in Multiple Sizes and Gauges. Loveland, Colo.: Interweave, 2002 (ISBN: 978-1-9314-9904-0).
This ingenious book allows the knitter to create basic garments (mittens, gloves, hats, scarves, tams, sweaters, vests, and socks) in any size, with any yarn and needle, by using an easy-to-follow matrix that gives directions for child to adult sizes in multiple gauges. Budd, the former managing editor of Interweave Knits, is also the author of The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns (2004).

Davis, Jane. Felting: The Complete Guide. Cincinnati, Ohio: Krause, 2009 (ISBN: 978-0-8968-9590-4).
Felting is the latest knitting craze, and this guide is an excellent and informative introduction to the full range of techniques, materials, and tools used in the craft. The book contains thirty-six projects from beginning to advanced, and includes step-by-step photos to guide the novice. More advanced felters will also appreciate Nicky Epstein’s Knitting Never Felt Better (2007).

Melville, Sally. The Knitting Experience. Sioux Falls, S. Dak.: XRX, 2002–5. Book 1: The Knit Stitch, Inspiration and Instruction. (ISBN: 978-1-8937-6213-8): Book 2: The Purl Stitch, Becoming Intuitive. (ISBN: 978-1-8937-6214-5): Book 3: Color, The Power and the Glory. (ISBN: 978-1-9330-6402-4).
Adventurous beginners and veterans alike will devour this three-volume primer that encourages experimentation while introducing the foundations of knitting. Melville covers the basics, supplies different options, and then combines the skills in the projects she presents. With excellent instructions and detailed patterns, this book is especially helpful for knitters who are teaching themselves without benefit of a live knitting instructor.

Parkes, Clara. The Knitter’s Book of Yarn: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing, Using, and Enjoying Yarn. New York: Potter Craft, 2007 (ISBN: 978-0-3073-5216-3).
Anyone who has walked into a yarn store will be boggled by the choices presented. Parkes, the editor of the online Knitter’s Review, tackles the tough task of demystifying those choices, covering the qualities of various fibers along with the different ways to turn them into yarn. The patterns apply this information, demonstrating the best uses for each fiber employed.

Radcliffe, Margaret. The Essential Guide to Color Knitting Techniques. North Adams, Mass.: Storey, 2008 (ISBN: 978-1-6034-2040-2).
A must-have resource for all projects that involve more than a single color of yarn, this guide walks the knitter through the gamut of multicolor knitting techniques with step-by-step photo illustrations. The techniques covered range from simple stripes through the complications of intarsia and Fair Isle all the way to rarer techniques like shadow and mosaic. Radcliffe includes tips on common problems like handling multiple strands of yarn and weaving ends back into the main color pattern.

Radcliffe, Margaret. The Knitting Answer Book. North Adams, Mass.: Storey, 2005 (ISBN: 978-1-5801-7599-9).
This tiny little volume functions as the book equivalent to a knitting FAQ. Radcliffe tackles questions that straight how-to guides skip over and addresses common dilemmas encountered by new and experienced knitters alike.

Righetti, Maggie. Knitting in Plain English, updated edition. New York: St. Martin’s, 2007 (ISBN: 978-0-3123-5353-7).
Righetti is an experienced knitting teacher whose guide for the beginning-to-intermediate knitter is sprinkled with salty comments about bad knitting patterns, practical tips for varying basic knitting stitches, and advice on correcting common mistakes. Refreshingly frank and plain-spoken, Righetti manages to demystify knitting while retaining a healthy reverence for the craft. Originally published in 1986 and now updated with new illustrations and details.

Vogel, Lynne. The Twisted Sisters Knit Sweaters: A Knit-to-Fit Workshop. Loveland, Colo.: Interweave, 2007 (ISBN: 978-1-9314-9969-9).
This thorough introduction to the basic elements of sweater design and construction guides knitters step-by-step through the process of adapting sweater patterns to suit their personal preferences and creative urges. Vogel covers bodice fitting, using different yarns, and changing proportions, necklines, edgings, sleeves, and colors and stitches. For another book on sweater design, consider Margaret Fisher’s Seven Things That Can “Make or Break” a Sweater (2008).

Watterson, Lynne. The Very Easy Guide to Cable Knitting. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010 (ISBN: 978-0-3126-0899-6).
The truth is in the title—this is indeed a very easy and inviting introduction to the technique of cabling, including a series of step-by-step lessons on different cable techniques. The photographs of cable swatches knit up in different types of yarn is an especially helpful touch for illustrating how yarn choice can impact a cable’s look and texture. For more advanced cablers, consider Melissa Leapman’s Cables Untangled (2006).

Wiseman, Nancie. The Knitter’s Book of Finishing Techniques. Woodinville, Wash.: Martingale, 2002 (ISBN: 978-1-5647-7452-1).
Careful finishing techniques can make the difference in producing a polished end piece, and this book goes through them all with matter-of-fact directions and clear illustrations. This reference covers binding off, weaving in yarn ends, various seams, grafting stitches, hemming knitted items, i-cord binding, crocheted edges, and all the other details the knitter must tend to after a knitted piece leaves the needles.

Focus on Knitting for Babies and Kids

Anderson, Susan B. Itty-Bitty Nursery. New York: Artisan, 2007 (ISBN: 978-1-5796-5334-7).
Anderson strikes a perfect balance between the practical (sweaters, caps and blankets, a tote bag for mom) and whimsical (a set of knitted peas and carrots, a cupcake tea set, an adorable bunch of mice to adorn a nursery mobile) in her inaugural collection of baby patterns for intermediate knitters.

Bliss, Debbie. Baby Knits for Beginners. North Pomfret, Vt.: Trafalgar Square, 2003 (ISBN: 978-1-5707-6248-2).
Bliss, the reigning queen of baby knits, presents realistic projects to start off beginners, covering some of the basics of knitting stitches and garment construction before presenting a few simple classic patterns: a garter stitch scarf, a pair of seed stitch shoes, a basic cardigan and v-neck. Once knitters complete some of these basic projects, they’ll be ready to move on to the slightly more complicated items in Bliss’s follow-up books Simply Baby (2006) and Essential Baby (2007).

Guy, Lucinda, and François Hall. Handknits for Kids: 25 Original Designs for Girls and Boys. North Pomfret, Vt.: Trafalgar Square, 2005 (ISBN: 978-1-5707-6310-6).
Guy presents fun and funky patterns for girls and boys ages two to five, for garments, accessories, blankets, and toys. The photographs of the knitted pieces that make up the final project (for instance, all of the individual pieces that, when assembled, form the “Handsome Hound”) are an especially useful visualization. Hall’s charming illustrations add a whimsical touch. Guy’s other books of kid knits include And So To Bed (2006) and Knitting Motifs for Babies and Kids (2010).

Focus on Knitting Socks

Bordhi, Cat. Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles. Friday Harbor, Wash.: Passing Paws, 2001 (ISBN: 978-0-9708-8695-8).
This slender book packs a lot of information into its forty-four pages. Knitting socks on two circular needles increases the speed with which a sock can be completed. Bordhi explains the technique in simple language, describes how to convert traditional sock patterns for use with two circulars, and supplies eleven original patterns using the two-circulars technique. Antje Gillingham’s Knitting More Circles Around Socks: Two at a Time, Toe Up or Cuff Down (2009) also will appeal to knitters interested in novel sock-knitting techniques.

Budd, Ann. Getting Started Knitting Socks. Loveland, Colo.: Interweave, 2007 (ISBN: 978-1-5966-8029-6).
This is the perfect book for the new sock-knitter. An opening section covers basic techniques and discusses options—the long-tail cast-on versus the Old Norwegian, knitting on four double-points versus using five. Budd presents five basic patterns for five different sock gauges and then adds some simple variations that add color and texture. The author doesn’t dazzle here with advanced designs, and her solid introduction to sock-knitting is all the stronger for that. Knitters who master this foundation are ready to move on to Budd’s collection Favorite Socks: 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave (2006).

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What would happen if you asked a group of readers’ advisory (RA) librarians—ranging from some of the top experts in the field to sharp readers who recently graduated from library school—to handpick a collection of professional tools, including books, articles, websites, blogs, and databases? You would get an eclectic collection of hard-working titles and sites that serve the daily needs of on-the-desk staff, foundational texts that set the standards of the service, and idiosyncratic picks that seem to always provide inspiration.

I found this out when I sent an e-mail to more than a dozen RA experts and asked them to work on this column. The only rules imposed to wrangle this process were that no one could pick their own work or work with which they are affiliated, and because of space limitations, once a title in a series was picked, that title would be the only book in the series included (but the selector could add a note to indicate the range of the entire series line). If I had endless space to devote to this topic, the column would consume the entire issue. RA librarians are a prolific and helpful lot and have produced a great deal of insightful writing. Library school professors teaching RA have written many seminal works we should all study. In short, there is far more excellent material available than can be covered in such limited space.

In an effort to pack in as much as possible, however, choices in each section were limited, as were annotations. While every book is annotated, only the top five picks for articles, blogs, and websites are annotated in favor of including more choices. Terry Jacobsen selected the articles, winnowing down a huge list to a hard-selected fifteen. Lisa Fraser did the same tough work in selecting the websites, as did Sarah Statz Cords with blogs. Neil Hollands and Jacqueline Sasaki also pitched in with the blogs, both selecting and annotating several of the key selections. Joyce Saricks wrestled with the RA databases, providing a neat overview of the five main products. The books were selected by John Charles, Mary K. Chelton, Gwen Glazer, Cindy Orr, Joyce Saricks, Kaite Mediatore Stover, Barry Trott, Kimberly Wells, and David Wright.—Editor

Books

Baker, Sharon L. and Karen L. Wallace. The Responsive Public Library: How to Develop and Market a Winning Collection. 2nd ed. Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 2002 (ISBN: 9780-313-00897-9).

One of the most useful works on the public library, this book is almost unknown to readers’ advisors. It promotes the use of strategic planning techniques to anticipate demand and deliver client-centered service based on an accessible collection. The book is packed with practical information such as what elements affect user selections, research on arrangements of fiction collections, information on promotion and displays, and providing gracious RA service. It includes an impressive bibliography.

Hollands, Neil. Read On . . . Fantasy Fiction: Reading Lists for Every Taste. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 2007 (ISBN: 978-1-59158-330-1).

Hollands compiles and annotates more than eight hundred titles in this excellent resource for RA and collection development librarians and the readers they serve. Listed by major appeal, titles are grouped by story, character, mood, setting, and language into quirky sublists. “Armageddon Out of Here: Fantasy’s Furious Final Battles” is one example of the many reading lists provided. Hollands not only leads readers to new books (or old forgotten favorites) but gives the stumped librarian a place to find everything from culturally diverse titles to action-packed stories that will appeal to gamers.

Series Note: Hollands’s book is part of the Read On series, which collects hundreds of titles into fun reading lists arranged by five areas of appeal (story, character, setting, mood, and language). Each book focuses on a genre or reading interest—crime fiction, women’s fiction, horror, memoir, etc.—and is designed to help readers find new favorites and RA librarians to get a sense of the scope of the genre.

Husband, Janet G. and Jonathan F. Husband. Sequels: An Annotated Guide to Novels in Series. 4th ed. Chicago: ALA, 2009 (ISBN: 978-0-8389-0967-6).

No one characterizes series as invitingly and precisely as the Husbands. Arranged by author, the entries describe each series in a few paragraphs and list titles in reading order, almost always with a brief plot summary. The entries speak to the appeal of each series and provide information perfect for sharing with readers. An online subscription version keeps series information up-to-date. Series likely to be found in a medium-size library are included; coverage is limited to novels only, across genres.

Kannenberg, Gene. 500 Essential Graphic Novels: The Ultimate Guide. New York: Collins Design, 2008 (ISBN: 978-0-06147451-4).

There are very few comprehensive RA tools for the graphic novel format, but Kannenberg’s colorful guide comes the closest. A short history of the American graphic novel opens this resource, divided into ten chapters ranging from “Adventure” to “Non-Fiction” to “War.” Each entry comes with a color duplication of the cover, an informative and occasionally critical annotation, a short review, and a read-alike suggestion. An essential collection development tool for the library beginning to build this type of collection and a brows-able resource for fans.

Lesher, Linda P. The Best Novels of the Nineties: A Reader’s Guide. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2000 (ISBN: 978-0-78640742-2).

The subjective organization of this model readers’ guide just feels right, with such sections as “More Than Meets The Eye” (literary titles with genre elements), “Literary Extensions” (inspired by literary precedents), “The Ties that Bind” (love, friendship, and family), “Unique Perspectives,” “The Innovators” (further divided into “Pushing the Boundaries” and “One Step Further”), and the ever popular “Humor.” Detailed summaries and critical excerpts are offered for more than one thousand titles, with indexes that include film adaptations and audiobook recordings. A heavy-duty resource for readers of all levels.

Pearl, Nancy. Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason. Seattle, Wash.: Sasquatch, 2003 (ISBN: 978-1-57061-381-4).

No RA roundup could skip the foremost expert on matching patrons with books—and the only known librarian action figure. Nancy Pearl organizes hundreds of titles into quirky lists of fiction and nonfiction suggestions that tempt readers out of their comfort zones. Two sequels, More Book Lust: 1,000 New Recommendations for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason and Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers, continue the series, and 2007’s Book Crush reaches out to young readers.

Perrin, Noel. A Reader’s Delight. Hanover, Md.: Published for Dartmouth College by University Press of New England, 1988 (ISBN: 978-0-87451-432-2).

Perrin’s charming personal essays on forty of his favorite titles is a prime example of those congenial readers’ guides that are themselves a pleasure to read. Circulating copies of Perrin together with such guides as Pearl’s Book Lust (see above) or multiauthor smorgasbords like Mark Strand’s Books: The Essential Insider’s Guide, and Ondaatje’s Lost Classics: Writers on Books Loved and Lost are a vital source of literary browsing for both readers and their advisors.

Ramsdell, Kristin. Romance Fiction: A Guide to the Genre. Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1999 (ISBN: 978-156308-335-8).

If you can only afford one romance readers’ advisory reference this is the book to buy (due out in 2011 in an updated edition). In addition to solid, practical advice on working with romance readers, the romance readers’ advisory interview, and collection development tips, Ramsdell provides chapters on different romance subgenres (such as romantic suspense) with lists of key authors and titles. It is a witty and well-written guide to the most popular of all fiction genres.

Series Note: Ramsdell’s book is part of Libraries Unlimited’s extremely useful Readers Advisory series, which began with the classic Genreflecting: A Guide to Popular Reading Interests. The series now has more than a dozen titles, each of which offer an overview of the genre and its subgenres, key authors and titles, and advice on working with readers in that genre. The series has also branched out to cover nonfiction and thus far includes three titles on such topics as women’s nonfiction, biography, and investigative writing.

Ross, Catherine Sheldrick, Lynne McKechnie, and Paulette M. Rothbauer. Reading Matters: What the Research Reveals about Reading, Libraries, and Community. Westport Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 2006 (ISBN: 978-1-59158-066-9).

Readers’ advisors like books that offer practical advice on providing service to readers. While these books are important to building skills, it is also essential to understand reading theory and how it relates to the practice of readers’ advisory. Ross et al. have written an authoritative and useful book for exploring how and why readers of all ages respond to books. Their research offers advisors a firm foundation from which to examine the reading experience.

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The firestorm of controversy over the recent vote in Switzerland to ban the building of minarets on mosques highlights the perilous and contentious state of Islamic community, culture, and religion in Europe. Finding reliable and current research and resources on the many threads that informs the debate surrounding the European Islamic community, Western perceptions, and the tensions between factions can be difficult. Jessica Adamick offers a comprehensive and up to date survey of resources that can aid reference and collection development librarians when working in this subject area. Adamick received her MLS from the School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University Bloomington, with a specialization in Digital Libraries in May 2009 and currently works as the Ethics Clearinghouse Librarian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is working on a National Science Foundation-funded project to build the Ethics in Science and Engineering National Clearinghouse Beta (ESENCe), a subject repository on the responsible conduct of research. Adamick developed her interest in the topic of Islam in Europe when she studied in Amsterdam as an undergraduate. She subsequently explored the topic at Earlham College, where she graduated with a BA in Women’s Studies in 2007.—Editor

Over the last three decades, events involving the conflict between European Muslims and secular or Christian European states have been highly visible. Protests of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses dominated the media in 1989, following a denied appeal by the United Kingdom Action Committee on Islamic Affairs for the British government to ban the book’s release. Also in 1989, the Affaire du Foulard (“the Headscarf Affair”) began in Creil, France, when three Muslim girls wearing headscarves were sent home from school. A national controversy ensued that led to the passing of a law in 2004 that banned obvious signs of religious affiliation in French schools. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, debates that associated Islam with violence became widespread. The murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by Dutch Muslim Mohammed Bouyeri and the Al-Qaeda bombing of trains in Madrid only fueled the flames of the heightened rhetoric. In response to these events and their political aftermath, there has been an enormous increase in publications on the topic of Islam in Europe. This annotated guide includes relevant, informative, authoritative, and influential reference sources, databases, periodicals, books, and websites that focus on Islam in Europe during the last three decades. Readers should note that in addition to this guide, several comprehensive bibliographies have been published on the subject: Jochen Blaschke’s Muslims in Europe: A Bibliography (Berlin: Edition Parabolis, 2002), Robert Goehlert’s Muslims in Contemporary Europe: A Guide to Selected Resources in English (Bloomington: Center for the Study of Global Change, Indiana Univ., 2006), and Jürgen Jensen’s Africans in Europe: A Bibliography, Interethnische Beziehungen und Kulturwandel, Vol. 51 (Münster: Lit, 2002). None of these, however, are annotated. It should also be noted that the current political environment in much of Europe supports the conflation of Islam with Islamic fundamentalism and the conception of all Muslims in Europe as immigrants. Researchers should be aware that some of the materials available reflect this confusion, and they should find sources that account for the level of diversity among Muslims in Europe.

Several methods and tools were employed in the identification and selection of the items for this guide. Reference sources were located by browsing the shelves of Indiana University Bloomington libraries and using standard reference sources such as American Reference Books Annual, Booklist, Choice, College & Research Libraries, and Reference & User Services Quarterly. Books were identified using Choice, Public Library Catalog, WorldCat, and book reviews in scholarly journals, and were selected on the basis of their relevancy, their citation count according to Arts and Humanities Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index, the number of library holdings, favorable reviews, reputation of the publisher, and date published. Databases were selected on the basis of the number of relevant items they indexed on the topic, and journals were selected on the basis of the frequency at which they published relevant articles. The Web resources, which were found by searching Google and Intute, were evaluated on the basis of their authority and the depth of information they provide.

References Sources

The following sources are ideal for preliminary research as they are concise and provide accessible, general overviews of current developments in Islam in Europe. Most of the entries include a bibliography or further reading suggestions.

Cook, Bernard A., ed. Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland, 2001 (ISBN: 978-0-8153-1336-6).
The entry “Muslims in Europe” traces the history of Muslim immigration to Europe post–1945 and briefly discusses main groups of Muslims in France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and the Balkans, with attention to differences between Muslims in Western and Eastern Europe. The entry concludes with a discussion of issues such as laws, integration, education, and Islamic identity.

Ember, Melvin, Carol E. Ember, and Ian Skoggard, eds. Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World. New York: Kluwer/Plenum, 2004 (ISBN: 978-0306-48321-9).
One notable entry in this source by the highly cited Pnina Werber, “Pakistani Migration and Diaspora Religious Politics in a Global Age,” discusses Pakistani migration and Pakistani–British community from World War II to the present, with a section titled “Islam, the Rushdie Affair, and the Development of a Diasporic Consciousness.” The other relevant entry in the encyclopedia is “Turks in Germany,” which gives a recent history starting with the employment of labor migrants in the early 1960s and includes a section on religious beliefs and practices.

Bearman, Peri et al., eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd edition. 12 vols. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2006. Brill Online.
The entry “Muslimūn (A.), Muslims” includes the sections “The Old-Established Communities of Eastern Europe” and “Migrant Muslims in Western Europe,” which provide excellent historical overviews, country profiles, and a breakdown of the demographics of each. There are thorough country profiles of Poland, Finland, Hungary, Rumania, Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Yugoslavia, France, Great Britain, West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and the countries of Southern Europe.

Esposito, John L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Pr., 2003 (ISBN: 978-0-19-512558-0).
This dictionary includes entries that present a short, broad overview of Islam in Europe, as well as in France, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Germany, Great Britain, the Balkan States, Albania, and Turkey. There are numerous other related entries that will provide quick reference.

Frucht, Richard, ed. Encyclopedia of Eastern Europe. New York: Garland, 2000 (ISBN: 978-0-8153-0092-2).
The entry “Muslims” gives a brief overview of the following areas: Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Yugoslavia, and Kosovo.

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Librarians responsible for the collection development of their library’s literary criticism section know that it is a difficult task to select the right book. Is the Oxford World’s Classic or the Penguin the best imprint of Jane Eyre? Which translation of War and Peace best captures Tolstoy’s language? Does the collection need both the 1818 and 1831 editions of Frankenstein, and if not, which edition? These questions are in addition to the issue of cataloging. Just how many records for Pride and Prejudice are we comfortable asking patrons to navigate? Once past the primary sources, collection development gets even stickier. Librarians new to the subject area must navigate an alphabet soup of titles—CLC, DLB, CA (green and orange)—and a confusing run of titles that are so similar you almost need a key to remember what slight difference in approach might make a big difference in your collection. And then there are the readers—facing deadlines for papers, navigating difficult and layered texts, or simply exploring books they love. How do we build collections that are responsive to their various needs? If only it were as easy as securing the complete run of Twayne’s Masterwork Studies Series and keeping our subscription to Gale’s Novels for Students up-to-date.

To help navigate the lush but messy waters of literary criticism, I asked Stefanie R. Bluemle to create a guide that both surveyed the resources and modeled the process of crafting a responsive collection. Stefanie is a reference librarian and library liaison to the departments of history, philosophy, and religion at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. She earned her MLS in 2008 at Indiana University Bloomington (IUB). Prior to entering the library science program, she earned her MA in English, also from IUB; her focus was nineteenth-century American literature. While conducting her graduate studies in English, Stefanie worked at IUB as an associate instructor, teaching a variety of composition classes to first-year undergraduates.—Editor

Literary criticism, the explication of the meaning and function of all forms of poetry and prose, exploded in terms of scope and even sheer quantity in the twentieth century. From a mid-twentieth-century emphasis on texts as discrete, self-contained entities to a blossoming of interest in the larger historical, social, and political contexts from which such texts arise, criticism expanded to address the variety of ways in which even those questions traditionally under the purview of other disciplines take shape in literature. In the early twenty-first century, literary criticism continues its interrogation of and departure from the traditional canon as its primary unit of analysis, embracing lesser-known authors, popular texts and other media, and lesser-read texts by prominent literary figures. Cultural studies remains influential to literary criticism, as evidenced by continued examination of the categories of race, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as the political sources and implications of cultural production. Postcolonial studies lends critics a means of grappling with literature and power in a global context. A variety of other methodologies persist as well, including deconstruction, Marxism, psychoanalysis, New Historicism, and feminism, to name only a few. At the same time, new trends and lines of inquiry constantly form. Even as scholarly interest in the body faded, for example, animal studies emerged. And more marginal trends, like ecocriticism, continue to clarify their particular methodologies. All told, literary criticism is a dynamic discipline with an interest in the implications of literary production that go well beyond the confines of text and language alone.

To extract a “core” set of resources from a field so wide-ranging in scope and methodology would be reductive, to say the least. Therefore this resource guide does not recommend specific works so much as it functions as a pathfinder in that word’s most literal possible sense: that is, this guide assists primarily in finding and discriminating among the resources it highlights. In recognition of the fact that every library’s collection must serve its particular reading community, the specific works listed here should be regarded as representative examples of high-quality work rather than the best that any given genre has to offer. That said, however, two basic assumptions do underlie the construction of this guide. First, the guide is intended more for smaller, especially public, libraries that are limited in the number of resources they can acquire. This guide takes the wide-ranging levels of readership at such libraries into account; at the same time, it assumes that the ultraspecific, highly theoretical, graduate- or higher-level texts common at research libraries will be mostly outside such collections’ scope. Second, although this guide does not assume an audience of high-level researchers, it does strive to identify resources that would be considered high-quality by such researchers. Put simply, all of the resources here—those the guide lists directly and those to which it indirectly points—are written by respected authors, released by quality publishers, and recent enough to reflect up-to-date trends in literary scholarship.

The guide has two main sections. The first introduces a broad set of high-quality literary resources: series, publishers, databases, and Web resources. This section includes only a small number of specific titles, as its main purpose is to suggest general pathways for locating material. The second section models the process suggested in the first section by highlighting books and other resources that might be relevant to a library updating its collection of material on a specific author: Herman Melville.

Primary Sources

Fiction and Nonfiction

The series listed here focus on “classic” works of literature: So many publishers print editions of such works that it can be difficult to discriminate among them. These series provide significant context or guidance and thus can be valuable aids in approaching difficult texts. All three include bibliographies or supplementary reading lists; otherwise, the presentation of each is unique.

Norton Critical Editions
Generally the most extensive critical editions available. Norton includes little introductory material, and footnotes are often brief. But each primary text is followed by numerous excerpts from other works in such categories as background material, sources for the text and other contemporary contexts, contemporary reviews, and modern literary criticism.

Oxford World’s Classics
Oxford’s introductions are readable guides to a basic understanding of some of the texts’ main questions and themes. Notes may be lengthy but are usually not great in number; some editions also contain brief appendixes that provide context or reprint material that was associated with the text in earlier editions.

Penguin Classics
Penguin’s introductions are brief (perhaps twenty to thirty pages) and provide readable critical and historical background. Notes are often numerous and in-depth, but they are placed at the end of the volume so the flow of the text itself is not interrupted. Many volumes also contain appendixes devoted to contemporary contexts.

Poetry

“Classic” works of poetry, especially longer poems, will likely be available as critical editions from the publishers listed above. However, recent or obscure poetry may be much more difficult to locate.

The Columbia Granger’s Index to Poetry. Columbia Univ. Pr.
A series of books that index poems—by title, author, subject, first line, and last line—and identify the anthologies and collections in which those poems were published. Also available as an electronic resource.

Web Resources

The resources here are among the broadest and most comprehensive electronic book collections available on the Internet. Additional high-quality sites devoted to more specific collections can be located through resources like the Librarians’ Internet Index (accessed Jan. 23, 2010).

Bartleby.com: Great Books Online.
An online publisher of fiction, verse, and nonfiction works in the public domain. All works are available full-text for free.

Internet Archive: Text Archive.
From the same project that provides the “Wayback Machine,” an online archive that seeks to preserve books and other texts in digital form. The text archive includes collections of American and Canadian literature and children’s books, among others.

Internet Public Library.
This URL leads directly to the Online Texts page of the Internet Public Library’s literature collection; the links provided here are excellent gateways to more specific collections of e-books.

Project Gutenberg.
The oldest project designed to provide e-books for free. Project Gutenberg offers texts for download or for reading online in plain-text format.

Secondary Sources

Reference Resources

Almost innumerable reference resources exist in literature and literary criticism. For the most part, then, this section of the guide addresses major series and publishers rather than individual titles. Of course, not every high-quality reference resource is published as part of a series; catalog searching will unearth these titles.

Bibliographies

The two texts listed here are the most important bibliographies of literary reference works; they can provide invaluable assistance in selecting reference resources that go well beyond those mentioned in this guide. Additional bibliographies (of primary and secondary resources in all areas of literature) are available from publishers like Greenwood, Gale, Scarecrow, Oxford, and Cambridge.

Harner, James L. Literary Research Guide: An Annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies. 5th ed. New York: Modern Language Association, 2008 (ISBN: 978-0873-52808-5).
An indispensable, comprehensive guide to reference resources in all areas of literature. This text is divided into sections by either the type of resource (e.g., bibliographies of bibliographies, biographical resources) or the broad area of literature under study (e.g., American literature, Irish literature).

Bracken, James K. Reference Works in British and American Literature. 2nd ed. Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1998 (ISBN: 978-1-563-08518-5).
Highlights reference resources that focus on a single author. This category is outside the scope of Harner’s bibliography, which makes Bracken’s book a potentially useful supplement despite its age.

Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

Broadly construed, literary encyclopedias and dictionaries fall into two categories. The first focuses on the literature of particular historical periods, movements, or genres; these resources may define terms as varied in type as authors, settings, events, texts, and concepts. The second broad category defines literary terms and concepts from critical theory; these resources largely retain their relevance across literary movements and time periods insofar as they approach literature from a disciplinary rather than historical perspective. The encyclopedia- and dictionary-type reference works listed here are representative examples; numerous other publishers have released similar titles.

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Building collections in religious studies is an important and often perplexing duty for many librarians. How much coverage is enough and to what depth? What titles offer appropriate information for the believer, researcher, and critic alike? And how are librarians that are not well versed in a particular faith best able to approach a collection-building project? Tierney V. Dwyer earned a master’s degree in library science from Indiana University’s School of Library and Information Science in Bloomington. She wrote this guide when she was attending Unitarian Universalism services. Her guide to Unitarian Universalism resources offers assistance to academic librarians seeking to build a deep and reflective collection and to public librarians looking for one or two titles to represent this fascinating religion, a faith that Ralph Waldo Emerson and Louisa May Alcott practiced and that continues to guide and inspire a wide range of worshipers.—Editor

Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religious faith grounded in the principles of its founding religions: Unitarianism and Universalism. Unitarianism began in the sixteenth century in Poland and Transylvania, where a number of Christians rejected the idea of the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as God). These Unitarians declared that they believed in the oneness, or unity, of God. In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe and America, other Christian reformers discovered what they deemed to be little biblical support for the Christian concept of hell. These reformers came to believe in a universally loving God and felt that God would grant all human beings salvation—they became known as the Universalists. Both of these religions existed independently around the world until 1961, when the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church in America joined together to form the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). The UUA, headquartered in Boston, is the loosely governing body of the Unitarian Universalist Church, overseeing more than one thousand congregations in North America. But Unitarian Universalism is not limited to the United States and Canada—Unitarian Universalist (UU) congregations can be found today on nearly every continent, and many of them work under the auspices of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists (ICUU).

In a given UU church today, one is likely to find Christians of all denominations, Jews, Wiccans, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, and people from other religions. The adherents of these faiths are free to practice their religion individually while still taking part in the pluralistic UU church community. While respecting the religious texts and prophets of other faiths, the UUs do not hold these texts as dogma or regard prophets as holy beings. They embrace the teachings of other faiths to enhance their own understanding of the world and of spirituality. Numbers in UU congregations are steadily growing, and the religion is gaining more visibility in mass media and among the academic and research communities. Information on this faith, however, is very scattered and often difficult to find.

This guide identifies and describes some of the most important and current sources on the topic. It is designed primarily as a guide for academic libraries planning to build, or evaluate an existing, collection on UU and its members. But, with the growing interest in the UU faith, public libraries will find some of the selected texts useful in providing a basic introduction to the subject.

Bibliographies

Harris, Mark W. “Bibliography,” Historical Dictionary of Unitarian Universalism. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2004. (ISBN: 0-8108-4869-4).
Harris’ “Bibliography” is a comprehensive record of history sources. Although the bibliography is not annotated, it begins with several pages of background information on resources, provides a table of contents, and indexes its items by the following headings: Periodicals and Yearbooks, Published Primary Sources, Biography, Histories (sub-categorized by region, time period, etc.), and Worship.

Robinson, David. “Bibliographic Essay,” The Unitarians and the Universalists. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985 (ISBN: 0-313-20946-4).
Although dated, this important source on American Unitarianism and Universalism provides excellent commentary on the quality of the listed materials and contains an exhaustive list of further sources.

Wright, Conrad. American Unitarian and Universalist Historical Scholarship: A Bibliography of Items Published 1946–1995. Cambridge, Mass.: Unitarian Universalist Historical Society, 2001 (No ISBN available).
This bibliography focuses primarily on scholarly items pertaining to the history of Unitarianism and Universalism in the United States. Although it was published in 2001, its scope is limited to the years 1946–1995. It is indexed by author, topic, and subject.

Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

Harris, Mark W. Historical Dictionary of Unitarian Universalism. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2004 (ISBN: 0-8108-4869-4).
Considered by many to be the most authoritative reference work on UU, the dictionary contains a lengthy chronology and introduction as well as entries on important people, places, causes, issues, countries, and time periods.

Jones, Lindsay, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. s.v. “Unitarian Universalist Association,” by John C. Godbey. 15 vols. (ISBN: 0-0286-5733-0).
This lengthy entry on UU provides an explanation of the UUA including background, history, and beliefs of both Unitarianism and Universalism. Formation and views of the UU church and discussion of the UUA’s membership in the International Association for Religious Freedom is also included.

Keller, Rosemary Skinner, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Marie Cantlon, eds. Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana Univ. Press, 2006. s.v. “Unitarian Universalist Movement, Women,” by Cynthia Grant Tucker. 3 vols. (ISBN: 0-2533-4685-1).
This source is unique in its specific focus on the role and history of women in the UU faith. It profiles important women like Judith Sargent Stevens Murray and Margaret Fuller in the history and formation of both the Unitarian and Universalist church. It discusses the emergence of female clergy and women’s groups (which eventually consolidated into the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation in 1963). The entry contains a lengthy bibliography.

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One only has to pick up a newspaper to learn of the continuing implications of September 11 on our political lives, but the terrorist attacks have had far reaching cultural and academic consequences as well. In her guide to academic freedom in a post–September 11 America, Janet Beuthe Anderson surveys the resources that inform the growing debate surrounding this topic. As librarians and academics struggle to navigate the newly besieged information world, her guide will be of great use to all of us wondering what new lines have been created, how we can work to eradicate some of those new lines, and how we can shore up the lines that protect our daily work.

As a recent graduate of the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, Anderson is in a unique position to create this guide as she is both a researcher on the topic and immersed in a world affected by the very issues she researches. A member of the American Library Association and the Progressive Librarians Guild, Anderson has long been interested in the topic of censorship and free speech and spent part of her time at Indiana researching literature related to academic freedom after September 11.—Editor

Academic freedom has long been an important issue to those in the academic profession, yet few fully grasp what academic freedom entails. Does it protect only the faculty of a university? What about other employees or officials? Is there a difference between public versus private colleges? Do students have the right to academic freedom, and, if not, should they? What exactly is protected under academic freedom? How is this freedom ensured? Many more questions and concerns may arise when the topic of academic freedom is discussed, which illustrates both the importance and uncertainty surrounding this subject.

The aspects involved with this issue have become ever more uncertain as well as more disputed, controversial, and significant since two commercial passenger jet airliners flew into the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001. Much like the Cold War in the 1950s, the new War on Terror has brought with it an examination of what is being taught and what information is available to citizens of America. Also, similar to the McCarthyism of the Cold War era, many in the field of academia are crying out in anger at what some see as invasions of privacy and witch-hunt tactics aimed at weeding out potential terrorists.

With such practices and questions arising, it only made sense that academic freedom policies be reexamined in a way that allows the public to take part. While there is much written on this often controversial topic generally, there is not as much available about the role of academic freedom in a post-September 11 America, and when resources are unearthed, it is often hard to extract the unbiased, educational resources from the editorialized and politically charged materials. This research guide attempts to do precisely that—allow those in academic settings (including librarians, faculty, students, and staff) to discover the available sources addressing this issue. The need for this research guide is due in part to the need to define and clarify the questions surrounding academic freedom and to the fact that no such guide has been compiled since the events of September 11. The most recently published bibliography on this topic was Stephen Aby and James Kuhn’s Academic Freedom: A Guide to the Literature (Greenwood Press) in 2000. Their guide, which covers more than 480 sources and is organized into 11 categories, provides essential information on the topic, including detailed annotations ranging between 150 and 300 words for each source, but lacks information that is pertinent since September 11. Therefore the aim of this guide is to encourage librarians to broaden their collection of recent resources on this topic, both for scholarly research as well as to provide support to those who may have concerns about academic freedom as it affects them directly.

For the purposes of this research guide, academic freedom is defined as “a right claimed by the accredited educator, as teacher and as investigator, to interpret his findings and to communicate his conclusions without being subjected to any interference, molestation, or penalization because the conclusions are unacceptable to some constituted authority within or beyond the institution.”¹ The majority of monographs selected are recent and valuable sources pertaining to present-day issues surrounding academic freedom, but a core collection of books of historical importance are also included as it is necessary to understand the history of academic freedom. Web resources have been selected on the basis of impartial and useful information provided and include a variety of perspectives on academic freedom that provide valuable information as well as links for further sources. This guide will serve as a tool for education professionals and prove useful for collection development purposes, encouraging librarians to continuously add to their collections and to seek out resources of varied aspects and views while maintaining key historical sources.

Encyclopedias, Dictionaries and Handbooks

Abowd, Tom, et al. Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility after 9/11: A Handbook for Scholars and Teachers. Task Force on Middle East Anthropology, 2006 (accessed Apr. 23, 2009).
Written in large part because of the events on September 11, this handbook aims to prevent the silencing of those who teach Middle East and Islamic Studies. However, the writers and researchers clearly point out that it is not just those who study these topics who are affected. The intention of this handbook is to support those who may encounter attacks on or for their work. The overall tone is optimistic, though, as the collaborators point out,“the commitment to thoughtful, critical, and engaged teaching and scholarship that sometimes makes academics targets of attack also produces important skills that can help in a response.”

Brown, Christopher M. and Benjamin Baez.“Academic Freedom.” In Higher Education in the United States: An Encyclopedia. Ed. J. F. Forest and Kevin Kinser. Vol. 1, 8–12. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2002 (ISBN: 978-1-576-07248-6).
In this entry the authors clearly define academic freedom and how it pertains to higher education. Including statements by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Association of American Colleges on the topic as well as legal matters such as the case of Sweezy v. New Hampshire, this resource will be valuable to anyone interested in academic freedom within higher education. Though there is no direct mention of the events of September 11, the authors do discuss the economic and political influences on academic freedom as well as how this freedom is affected by modern-day conservatism.

Neal Wyatt, Editor
Denise A. Brush, Guest Columnist

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Reduce, reuse, recycle: It’s the simple mantra of a movement to help save the earth. While most of us have installed eco-efficient light bulbs and neatly bundle our old newspapers for weekly pickup, crafting environmental collections that serve the needs of our patrons is often a haphazard process at best. Global warming is a hot topic for publishers, so much so that it is hard to separate the important, well-researched, and useful books from all the noise surrounding the issue. Denise A. Brush, subject librarian for science and engineering at Rowan University Libraries in Glassboro, New Jersey, is well qualified to suggest a strategy for developing a solid collection in this area of environmental studies. While earning her BS in Civil and Environmental Engineering from MIT, she worked for the late climatologist Helmut Landsberg at the University of Maryland’s Department of Meteorology. A public services librarian, she earned her library degree from Drexel University in 2004 and is a reviewer for Science Books & Films.—Editor

While the rest of the world has recognized the reality of global warming since the 1990s, the United States has not taken it seriously until very recently. The 2008 presidential election was the first time that both major party candidates campaigned on the need for the United States to address global warming.

The 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to former vice president Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ‘‘for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change.”¹ The IPCC, in their April 2007 report, stated that there is a 90 percent probability that the measured increase in global temperatures in the past three decades was caused by greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere since 1950 by humans.² The report described the many climate changes that have already occurred and their consequences for communities and ecosystems, making it clear that global climate change is happening, whether it is man-made or natural.

According to columnist Gregg Easterbrook of the New York Times, there is now a consensus among American scientists that global warming is real:

The American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society in 2003 both declared that signs of global warming had become compelling. In 2004 the American Association for the Advancement of Science said that there was no longer any ‘‘substantive disagreement in the scientific community’’ that artificial global warming is happening. In 2005, the National Academy of Sciences joined the science academies of Britain, China, Germany, Japan and other nations in a joint statement saying, “There is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring.”³

This is a time when libraries can provide a vital educational service. The following bibliography recommends books, films, reference works, journals, scholarly articles, databases, and websites to help students, faculty, and the public learn about global warming.

Books

Global warming is a field that is changing extremely rapidly as new research results come to light. Except for some key historical books identified below, purchases of books on global warming should focus exclusively on the past few years. University libraries should also consider reviewing and updating their collections on renewable energy technologies such as solar, wind, nuclear, biofuels, and hydrogen power.

Alley, Richard B. The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and our Future. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Pr., 2002 (ISBN: 978-0-691-10296-2). Penn State geology professor Richard Alley explains how ice cores can tell the story of past climates hundreds of millions of years ago, and also provide valuable insight into what the future could bring. This older book remains relevant because it describes a scientific methodology that continues to play a big part in climate science. For academic and public libraries.

Braasch, Gary. Earth under Fire: How Global Warming is Changing the World. Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of California Pr., 2007 (ISBN: 978-0-520-26025-2). In this important book, photojournalist Gary Braasch presents photographic evidence from his six years of travel around the globe that the environmental effects of global warming are real. Key ecosystem and climate changes, from glacial and permafrost melting to physical changes in the oceans to a multitude of effects on animals and plants, are described in photographs and with essays contributed by experts. For all libraries.

Coward, Harold and Andrew J. Weaver, eds. Hard Choices: Climate Change in Canada. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Pr., 2004 (ISBN: 978-0-88920-442-3).This collection discusses the political, economic, and social implications of global warming for Canada. Each chapter is written by an expert in a particular academic discipline. Some experts favor adaptation and others argue for various types of efforts to slow global warming, but all agree that Canada is experiencing real climate change already and will continue to do so. For academic libraries.

Flannery, Tim. The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth. New York: Grove/ Atlantic, 2006 (ISBN: 978-0-8021-6502-2). Also available in e-book and audio formats from Recorded Books.This is one of the most comprehensive and readable overviews of the subject of global warming. It was nominated for the 2007 ALA Notable Books Award. Tim Flannery, who provides an Australian perspective, explains how climate change research has lead to the current scientific consensus and describes some of the options for solving the crisis. This book summarizes many of the other top books on global warming as well as key scholarly articles, making it an essential purchase. For public and academic libraries.

Goodstein, Eban. Fighting for Love in the Century of Extinction: How Passion and Politics Can Stop Global Warming. Burlington, Vt.: Univ. of Vermont Pr., 2007 (ISBN: 978-1-58465-657-9). In his third book on economics and the environment, liberal economics professor Eban Goodstein warns that habitat destruction and species extinction is happening now and will continue unless the climate is stabilized. He explains the importance of biodiversity in our natural environment and argues for political activism and education to raise American consciousness. A nationwide teach-in on global warming at American colleges and universities, first proposed in this book, occurred on January 31, 2008. For academic libraries.

Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, 2006 (ISBN: 978-1-59486-567-1). Also available on CD. Former vice president Al Gore explains global warming to the general public and makes the case for action, in this book that accompanied the documentary film and launched the worldwide campaign that resulted in the Nobel Peace Prize. For public and academic libraries.

Hoffman, Andrew J. Carbon Strategies: How Leading Companies are Reducing their Climate Change Footprint. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Univ. of Michigan Pr., 2007. (ISBN: 978-0-472-03265-5). This how-to manual is written for companies that want to develop a proactive plan to cope with climate change. It recommends specific business strategies, and offers numerous case studies detailing what various companies have done both to plan for future carbon emissions regulation and to take advantage of climate-related market opportunities. A very useful source of ideas for business students and faculty interested in climate change, as well as for business owners. For academic and public libraries.

Houghton, John T. Global Warming: The Complete Briefing. 3rd ed. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 2004 (ISBN: 978-0-521-52874-0). This book, now in its third edition, developed from the original briefing on global warming given to Prime Minister Thatcher in 1990 by Sir John Houghton, former chairman of the Scientific Assessment Working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It “aims to state the current scientific position on global warming clearly, so that we can make informed decisions on the facts.” This work has become an essential primary source that is frequently cited. For academic libraries.

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The second edition of the Reading List, RUSA’s juried selection of the best genre books in eight different categories, was announced at the ALA Midwinter Meeting this past January. The winning titles showcased the rich pleasures that genre books offer readers. To celebrate the creation of the Reading List and to highlight the importance of genre fiction in library collections, I instituted an “Alert Collector” occasional series on genre fiction. The first column in the series focused on romance fiction. This second entry focuses on fantasy fiction.

Fantasy fiction is, like much of genre fiction, at the center of a storm. Motifs, approaches, and styles that were once its sole domain have spread out and entered other genres. Today it is often difficult to decide if a book is a fantasy or a horror or a romance title. To the dismay of some purists, sometimes it is even hard to tell fantasy from science fiction. Forms are changing, genre lines are blurring, and new spin-off genres are appearing. The richness of this genre world offers readers great new frontiers to explore, but it can be a bit of a headache for librarians trying to build collections, work with readers, or even shelve titles in the most useful manner.

To help us get our bearings in this fabulously rich stew of books, I asked the Adult Services staff at Williamsburg Regional Library (WRL) to look at the genre and map it out for readers and librarians alike. I thought of WRL because several of the staff there are known in readers’ advisory circles for their knowledge of fantasy fiction and their appreciation of genres in general. Charlotte Burcher, who wrote the “Historical Fantasy” section, reads broadly in adult and young adult fantasy. She is a member of WRL’s Looking for a Good Book team and a regular blogger on fantasy titles at Blogging for a Good Book. Neil Hollands, who wrote the “Literary Fantasy” section, is the author of Read On … Fantasy Fiction (Libraries Unlimited, 2007) and coordinates WRL’s Looking for a Good Book service. He writes for Booklist Online’s Book Group Buzz blog and reviews fantasy titles for Library Journal. Andrew Smith, who wrote the “Realistic Fantasy” section, is readers’ services librarian at WRL, where he implemented the library’s Gab Bags collection for book discussion groups and coordinates the library’s book groups and author visits. He is a contributor to the NoveList readalikes collection and develops reading lists as part of the WRL Looking for a Good Book team. WRL Adult Services Director Barry Trott, who wrote the “Epic Fantasy” section, is series editor for Libraries Unlimited’s Read On series and author of Read On … Crime Fiction (Libraries Unlimited, 2008). He also writes for NoveList and edits the “Readers’ Advisory” column in RUSQ. Jessica Zellers, who wrote the “Paranormal/Urban/Contemporary Fantasy” section, is electronic resources librarian at WRL. She is completing her first book on women’s nonfiction for Libraries Unlimited and is a regular contributor of readalikes and articles to NoveList.—Editor

Fantasy is one of fiction’s largest and fastest growing genres. While there are many definitions, a generous approach to the genre includes any work that contains magic or other elements that cannot be understood by the rules of reality. It also includes largely realistic works set in imagined variations on certain historical periods—the medieval era in particular. Although fantasy does have escape value and is enjoyed by many readers for exactly this reason, it is a mistake to think of this as the genre’s only appeal. The best fantasy fiction features a wonderful blend of action, strong characters, and detailed, atmospheric settings. Classical themes such as honor, love, war, revenge, responsibility, otherness, obsession, and loyalty are explored in fantasy tales. Subjects such as bigotry, greed, religious extremism, politics, abuse, and addiction can be examined in fantasy contexts without offending cultural sensitivities. Fantasy is a chameleon, taking in elements of historical, romance, crime, and adventure fiction, often in the pages of the same book. This article highlights five major types of fantasy: epic high fantasy, paranormal/urban/contemporary fantasy, historical fantasy, realistic fantasy, and literary fantasy. While this covers the largest subset of the genre, space does not allow us to fully cover other important subgenres: political fantasy, hero fantasy, dark fantasy, romantic fantasy and fantasy romance, humorous fantasy, fables, and science fantasy most prominently. Alert collectors should also note two other aspects of fantasy: First, an appreciation of series and their reading order is critical to the genre. Series gaps in the collection reduce the enjoyment of readers and circulation of every series title. Circulation of a series may languish until that series becomes known or nears completion, but then it will rise quickly. Second, while this article focuses on fantasy published for the adult market, collectors should understand that, more than in any other genre, young adult readers will explore the adult fantasy collection and, conversely, adult fantasy fans will appreciate young adult and children’s fantasy works. Awareness of authors such as J. K. Rowling, Lloyd Alexander, Susan Cooper, Brian Jacques, Diana Wynne Jones, Robin McKinley, Garth Nix, Christopher Paolini, Tamora Pierce, Philip Pullman, and Jonathan Stroud will behoove librarians trying to satisfy fantasy readers.

Epic High Fantasy

When many readers think of fantasy fiction, they are really thinking of epic high fantasy. These stories, often rooted in Norse and Celtic mythology, feature elegant prose, large casts of characters, arduous quests, and lots of magic. Objects play an important role here; rings, chalices, and swords are frequently keys to the success of the quest. A major appeal of epic fantasy is worldbuilding. These tales play out on a large map, giving an opportunity for authors to develop and explore their worlds. Series titles are common here as well. These tales take time to reach resolution.

Contemporary epic fantasy writers can hardly avoid being compared to the early masters. E. R. Eddison, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Lord Dunsany paved the way for writers like Terry Brooks, Ursula K. Le Guin, David Eddings, Raymond Feist, Jennifer Roberson, and Stephen Donaldson. Epic fantasy flourishes today with these writers and others producing exciting tales of high adventure. Readers come to these works looking for adventure on a sweeping scale, elegant language, and struggles between good and evil.

Bujold, Lois McMaster. Chalion series. The Curse of Chalion. New York: EOS, 2006. (ISBN 0061134244).
Perhaps better known for science fiction, Bujold is also a master of high fantasy. Here, she presents a damaged hero, betrayed by those he trusted, who returns to serve the royal family. As tutor to the young royesse of Chalion, former nobleman Lupe dy Cazaril puts his life and honor at risk to protect his charge and to revenge himself on his betrayers. Bujold presents a compelling mixture of magic, violence, and romance in this series starter.

Duncan, Dave. Tales of the King’s Blades series. The Gilded Chain: A Tale of the King’s Blades. New York: Avon Eos, c1998. (ISBN 9780380974603).
Duncan blends adventure, magic, politics, and swordplay into a satisfying tale. This series starter sets the stage, a land with a medieval/feudal feel, and the premise, that a class of men is raised to be bound swordsmen to their liege lords. Duncan tells the life of the swordsman Durendal, bound by powerful magic to serve the king. Durendal and his band are sent on a quest to uncover the secrets of the distant city of Samarinda.

Hobb, Robin. Farseer trilogy. The Assassin’s Apprentice. New York: Bantam Books, 1995. (ISBN 055357339X).
Hobb has made her name with several epic high fantasy series. The Farseer trilogy is Hobb at her best. She tells the story of a prince’s by-blow, trained as an assassin to serve the royal family. Hobb is noted for her skilled and creative world-building and for the depth of her characters. She offers up a fine mix of adventure, political intrigue, and romance.

Jordan, Robert. The Wheel of Time series. The Eye of the World. New York: Tor, 1990. (ISBN 0812500482).
Jordan’s series is an epic undertaking in worldbuilding. Over twelve books, Jordan takes readers on a far-reaching journey across his fictional landscape. The series starter introduces the heroes of the quest, who find themselves caught up in events far beyond their imagining, in a world where magic and physical prowess battle for control. Complex characters, twisting plots, and a deft blend of action and description make this a potent series.

Kay, Guy Gavriel. Tigana. New York: Roc, 1990. (ISBN 0670833339).
Kay is noteworthy for having been selected to assist in the editing of J. R. R. Tolkien’s work for posthumous publication. Tolkien’s influence is clear here in the varied cast of characters, the strong sense of place, and the story of a young hero, son of a vanquished kingdom, leading the struggle against the forces of evil. A prolific fantasist, Kay has a number of important stand-alone novels as well as series titles.

Paranormal/Urban/Contemporary Fantasy

Buffy the Vampire Slayer did a great service to humankind (above and beyond killing monsters, that is): she ushered in the craze for Contemporary Fantasy. Buffy showed the masses that fantasy can be fun, modern, quirky, sexy, and funny. Also known as Paranormal Fantasy, the books usually feature paranormal characters (werewolves, vampires, wizards, fairies, etc.) in a contemporary setting. City settings are especially popular (ergo the subgenre Urban Fantasy) and crossovers with other genres are hot, most notably with romance and erotica. Expect fast pacing, exciting plots, and hip characters.

Forerunners of Contemporary Fantasy include Charles de Lint and Emma Bull, both of whom are still popular. J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer are phenomena in their own right; other hot authors include L.A. Banks, Patricia Briggs, Rachel Caine, P.C. Cast, MaryJanice Davidson, Christopher Golden, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Sherrilyn Kenyon.

Armstrong, Kelley. Women of the Otherworld series. Bitten. New York: Viking, 2001. (ISBN: 0452286034).
Werewolves, necromancers, and other assorted denizens of the supernatural world drive the stories in Armstrong’s books. Expect a bit of mystery, a lot of romance, and female leads who steal the show. The novels work well on their own or can be read in sequence (ten to date); first in the series is Bitten.

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The role and powers of the president have come under increasing scrutiny since the tragic events of September 11. While the current political debate is focused on the unilateral actions of the office of the president since the terrorist attack, interest in the ways presidents use and manage the power of their position have been a subject of concern since George Washington. Amalia Monroe explores the history and methods of presidential power in this highly useful guide. While the guide is designed for college-level research, there are many suggestions for public libraries and a selection that would serve the needs of high school students as well. Monroe is a social sciences librarian at the University of Kansas, where she works as the bibliographer for political science and international documents. In addition to receiving her MLS from Indiana University, Monroe has a BS and MS in political science from Illinois State University.—Editor

American presidential power has long been an area of interest in the social sciences and receives increasing attention from researchers and the mass media. This popularity has resulted in an abundance of research materials on the topic. The problem, however, is that these materials can be very difficult to locate, as they are scattered across several disciplines (e.g., political science, history, and sociology) and are published in a variety of sources that are not always well indexed by databases and online catalogs (e.g., articles in reference sources and chapters in books). Locating research materials on American presidential power can also be difficult because it is often subsumed in sources covering the presidency as a whole. Even bibliographies, which could help to identify resources in this area, are scarce and dated. The goal of this guide is to fill this gap by listing and describing core resources addressing American presidential power as well as resources that librarians can use to evaluate or update their existing collections. The guide includes some of the most important reference sources, biographical sources, books, periodicals, journal articles, databases, government information resources, and Internet resources on the topic.

Reference Sources

Genovese, Michael A., ed. Encyclopedia of the American Presidency. New York: Facts on File, 2004 (ISBN: 978-0-8160-4699-7).
Arranged alphabetically by topic, this encyclopedia includes entries addressing the operations and the institution of the presidency and individual administrations. Relevant articles include “War Powers,” “Presidency, Theories of,” and “Separation of Powers.” Each entry is brief but concise, explaining key concepts related to the presidency. The title is out of print but remains an essential reference source and should be retained in all collections.

Israel, Fred L. Presidential Documents: The Speeches, Proclamations, and Policies That Have Shaped the Nation from Washington to Clinton. New York: Routledge, 2000 (ISBN: 978-0-415-92037-7).
Guide to significant presidential sources from important events in the American presidency. Sources include speeches, proclamations, and executive orders. This is a selective source; however, each entry is followed by a discussion explaining its significance. These sources are useful for understanding the actions of presidents.

Nelson, Michael. Guide to the Presidency. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Pr., 2007 (ISBN: 978-0-87289-364-1).
Two volumes covering all aspects of the American presidency. It is divided into eight parts. In the third part, “Powers of the Presidency,” the authors divide different sources and expressions of presidential power into seven detailed and exhaustive chapters. These include “Unilateral Powers of the Presidency,” “Legislative Leader,” and “Commander in Chief.” Each ends with notes and selected bibliographies. Cross-referencing is also provided, which demonstrates the relationship between discussions of presidential power.

Nelson, Michael, ed. The Presidency A to Z. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Pr., 2007 (ISBN: 978-0-87289-367-2).
Addresses presidential power in different sections: bureaucracy, veto power, and separation of powers. This is a good source for beginning researchers because of the easy-to-understand writing style and the additional reading lists at the end of every section. Cross-referencing is also provided at the beginning of some sections.

Nelson, Michael, ed. Powers of the Presidency. 3rd ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Pr., 2008 (ISBN: 978-0-87289-958-2).
Powers of the executive branch are broken down into several sections, including “Unilateral Powers of the Presidency,” “Chief of State,” “Legislative Leader,” “Chief Diplomat,” “Commander in Chief,” and “Chief Economist.” This book is a good source for understanding the formal and informal powers of the executive from historical, constitutional, and current perspectives.

Sisung, Kelle S. and Gerda-Anne Raffaelle, eds. Presidential Administrations Profiles for Students. Detroit: Gale Group, 1999 (ISBN: 978-0-7876-3911-2).
Reference work intended for students, undergraduate students, and teachers. It is arranged chronologically by administration (Washington to Clinton). Each profile contains a biographical section and an administration section. At the end of each profile a bibliography and list of suggested readings is provided. Though intended for lower-level students, this source provides important information on each administration and is an easy to use and understand reference source for beginning researchers.

Wettreau, Bruce W. “Chief Executive” and “Commander in Chief.” Congressional Quarterly’s Desk Reference on the Presidency. Washington, D.C.: CQ Pr., 2000 (ISBN: 978-1-56802-589-6).
Wettreau addresses commonly asked questions about the powers and functioning of the executive office in a clear and concise manner (e.g., Who declares war, the president or Congress? What is an executive order?). These articles provide a starting point for researching presidential power and will help in understanding the many different subsections of the topic.

Woll, Peter. “Executive Power.” In Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, ed. Leonard W. Levy and Louis Fisher, 587–93. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994 (ISBN: 978-0-13-276197-0).
Effectively summarizes the growth of presidential power in the twentieth century. Sections addressing the different powers of the president are also included. Woll further explains the most influential perspectives on presidential power put forth by experts such as Edwin Corwin, Richard Neustadt, and Arthur Schlesinger. The title is out of print; however, it should be retained by libraries because of its continued usefulness.

Books

Included are classic works as well as more recent publications. Recently published books specifically addressing American presidential powers post–September 11 are listed because they represent a shift in the academic literature.

Crenson, Matthew A., and Benjamin Ginsberg. Presidential Power: Unchecked and Unbalanced. New York: Norton, 2007 (ISBN: 978-0-393-06488-9).
Discusses the expansion of the presidency. The authors frame their argument of the expanded executive branch in relation to the decline of “popular political engagement” among the general public of the United States. It considers the motives and opportunities utilized by the executive that has led to the “aggrandizement” of the American presidency. This is a useful source for current analysis of presidential power.