REFERENCE MATERIAL

What is a reference resource?

When searching for information in the library, often circulating books and magazines will not answer all of your questions.  Reference books are good sources for getting an overview of a topic and for finding specific facts.  Reference books collect information for researchers on thousands of topics and arrange them so that they can easily be found.  Because they contain so much information and many people use them, they must remain in the library.  The most commonly used reference books are almanacs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, and indexes.

• Almanacs are books with facts that are usually published yearly.  They have short articles on events that happened during the year.  Almanacs contain many statistics and facts.  Use an almanac when quick bits of information are needed.

• Atlases are more than a book of maps.  Some provide information on particular subjects like population, geology, weather, economy and society.  Historical atlases show how the boundaries of a country have changed with time.

• A dictionary is a book that helps with more than how to spell or pronounce words.  Many have helpful sections on topics like grammar, foreign words, commonly misspelled words, geography and biography.  Also frequently found are synonyms, antonyms, prefixes, suffixes, and abbreviations. There are many kinds of dictionaries.  The most commonly known is a language dictionary, but there are also specialized dictionaries on subjects like music, science, business, and math.

• Encyclopedias are one of the most used reference books.  They contain information on all fields of knowledge.  Topics can be found about people, animals, places, and things.  If basic information is needed on most any topic, try the encyclopedias.  Many are now in electronic format, and searching for information is easy.

• An index tells where information can be found.  The most common use for an index is to find magazine articles.  A magazine index, such as the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, is arranged alphabetically by subject.  This will help the researcher find the articles needed from a magazine or newspaper.  The index tells who the author is, the article title, the magazine name, the magazine date, volume, issue number, and the page number that the article is printed on.  Some indexes are now available electronically and are known as databases.  These databases not only contain the information needed to locate the article, but often also contain the complete article.  This is known as a full-text, bibliographic database.  An example is EBSCOHost or Search Bank.
  

There are many other types of reference books; and librarians are specially trained to know what they are and how to use them.  Remember, in finding information, the best resource in the library is a Librarian.  Please let them know when you need help.