The following list of reference materials will give you some idea of the variety of sources available for research. In order to list as many items as possible, information is limited to titles and individual authors. Within each group, the books are listed alphabetically by title. The section on electronic information sources represents those materials most frequently found in school and public libraries.

In the section on special reference works, the number in parentheses after a heading—Theater (792)—is the Dewey Decimal Classification for that group. Although some libraries may give different classifications to certain titles, this device will assist you in locating books on these subjects.

The books listed below were selected from the many that exist under each subject heading. They represent some of the most inclusive sources of information on various subjects of interest to students from the junior high school through the college level. Students should find these books most useful in helping them accumulate the kind of information they need in order to write essays, research papers, reports, theses, and dissertations. The books listed below are available in many school and public libraries.

General reference books Almanacs and yearbooks

1. Britannica Book of the Year, 1938-

2. Collier's Year Book, 1939-

3. The Americana Annual, 1923-

4. The Time Almanac, 1947-

5. Whitaker's Almanac

6. The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1868-

7. The World Book Year Book, 1922- (also published as World Book's Year in Review)

Bibliographies

1. American Book Publishing Record, 1960-

2. Books in Print, 1948-

3. Canadian Books in Print, 1967-

4. Paperbound Books in Print, 1955-1996

5. Subject Guide to Books in Print, 1957-

Biography

1. Indexes

2. Biography Index, 1946-

3. International

4. Current Biography, 1940-

5. The International Who's Who, 1935-

6. McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Biography

7. Webster's New Biographical Dictionary

8. Who's Who

9. United States

10. American National Biography

11. The Biographic Dictionary of Hispanic Americans, Nicholas E. Meyer

12. The Encyclopedia of Native American Biography, Donald A. Grinde and Bruce E. Johansen

13. Notable Asian Americans, Susan B. Gall and Helen Zia, eds.

14. Who's Who Among African Americans, 1996–

15. Who's Who in America, 1899-

16. Who's Who of American Women, 1958-

17. Who Was Who in America, 1897-1981

18. Who Was Who in America: Historical Volume, 1607-1996

19. Canada

20. Canadian Who's Who, 1910-

21. Dictionary of Canadian Biography

22. United Kingdom

23. Dictionary of National Biography

24. Who's Who, 1849-

25. Who Was Who

"Curious fact" books

1. Famous First Facts, Joseph N. Kane

2. Guinness Book of Records

Encyclopedias, general

1. The Encyclopedia Americana

2. The New Book of Knowledge

3. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica

4. The World Book Encyclopedia

English-language dictionaries

1. General dictionaries

2. Funk & Wagnalls New International Dictionary of the English Language

3. The Oxford English Dictionary

4. The Random House Unabridged Dictionary

5. Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary

6. Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged

7. The World Book Dictionary

8. Abbreviations

9. Abbreviations Dictionary, Ralph DeSola

10. Rhymes

11. Whitfield's University Rhyming Dictionary, Frances Stillman and Jane S. Whitfield

12. Slang

13. A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Eric Partridge

14. Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang

15. Synonyms and antonyms

16. Roget's International Thesaurus

17. Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms

Periodicals and newspapers Bibliographies

1. Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media, 1869-

2. Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory

3. Indexes

4. The New York Times Index, 1913-

5. Nineteenth Century Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, 1890-1899

6. Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, 1900-

Research, library use, and writing

1. The Elements of Style, William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White

2. Guide to Reference Books, Robert Balay

3. Index to English, Wilma R. and David R. Ebbitt

4. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Kate L. Turabian

5. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Joseph Gibaldi

6. Oxford Guide to Library Research, Thomas Mann

7. The Research Paper and the World Wide Web, Dawn Rodrigues

Special reference books The humanities: The meaning of life.

1. Architecture (720)

2. The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture, John Fleming, et al.

3. Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture, Banister Fletcher

1. Art, general (700)

2. Art Index, 1929-

3. Gardner's Art Through the Ages

1. Literature (800)

2. American Authors and Books, 1640 to the Present Day, William Burke and Will Howe

3. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. C. Brewer

4. Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century

5. Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature

6. Contemporary Authors, 1962-

7. Cyclopedia of World Authors, Frank N. Magill, ed.

8. Familiar Quotations, John Bartlett

9. Granger's Index to Poetry

10. Play Index, 1949-1997

1. Music (780)

2. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

3. The New Oxford History of Music

1. Mythology (290)

2. Bulfinch's Mythology

3. A Dictionary of World Mythology, Arthur Cotterell

4. Meridia Handbook of Classical Mythology, Edward Tripp

1. Philosophy (100)

2. The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers, James O. Urmson and Jonathan Ree, eds.

3. Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

1. Theater (792)

2. The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, Phyllis Hartnoll, ed.

3. Shakespeare's Theatre, C. Walter Hodges

4. Theatre World, 1945-

The sciences: Nature and the physical world.

1. General (500; 600)

2. American Men and Women of Science

3. The Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientific Biography

4. The New Book of Popular Science, Grolier

5. McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology

6. Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia

7. Words of Science and the History Behind Them, Isaac Asimov

1. Biology (574)

2. The Peterson Field Guides [series]

1. Engineering (620)

2. The Dictionary of Space Technology, Joseph A. Angelo

3. Energy: A Guidebook, Janet Ramage

4. Random House Webster's Computer and Internet Dictionary

5. Webster's New World Computer Dictionary

1. Medicine (610)

2. Doctors: The Biography of Medicine, Sherwin Nuland

3. Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary

1. Oceanography (551.4)

2. Essentials of Oceanography, Harold Thurman

1. Zoology (590)

2. Walker's Mammals of the World, Ronald M. Nowak, ed.

The social sciences: People and society.

1. General (300)

2. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences

3. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, Gordon Marshall

1. Anthropology (301)

2. Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer

3. Encyclopedia of Human Evolution and Prehistory, Alison Brooks, Eric Delson, Ian Tattersall, and John Vancouvering, eds.

1. Customs and folklore (390)

2. Anniversaries and Holidays, Bernard Trawicky

3. Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend

1. Economics (330)

2. Penguin Dictionary of Economics

1. Geography and travel (900-919)

2. The Columbia Gazetteer of the World

3. Fodor's [Travel publications]

4. National Geographic Atlas of the World

5. Rand McNally The New International Atlas

6. Webster's New Geographical Dictionary

7. The World Book Encyclopedia of People and Places

1. History (900-909; 930-999)

2. Basic Documents in American History, Richard B. Morris, comp.

3. Dictionary of American History

4. Encyclopedia of American History

5. An Encyclopedia of World History, Peter N. Stearns, ed.

6. The New Cambridge Modern History

7. The Times Atlas of World History

1. Law (340)

2. Black's Law Dictionary, Henry Campbell Black, et al.

3. Charter of the United Nations: Commentary and Documents. Leland M. Goodrich, et al.

1. Statistics (310)

2. Historical Statistics of the United States, 1789 to present

3. The Statesman's Yearbook

4. Statistical Abstract of the United States

5. Statistical Yearbook [United Nations]

1. U.S. federal and state governments (353)

2. The Book of the States [yearbook]

3. Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications, 1895-

4. United States Government Manual

5. Using Government Information Sources: Electronic and Print

6. Government Information on the Internet

Electronic information sources CD-ROM magazine indexes

1. Info Trac/TOM, Gale Group

2. Magazine Article Summaries, EBSCO

3. Wilson Disc, H. W. Wilson Co.

CD-ROM materials

1. Columbia Granger's World of Poetry

2. Complete National Geographic

3. Encyclopaedia Britannica CD-ROM

4. Facts on File News Digest, CD-ROM

5. The Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia

6. History of the World

7. McGraw-Hill Multimedia Encyclopedia of Science and Technology

8. Microsoft Encarta

9. Newsbank

10. U.S. History on CD-ROM

11. World Book Encyclopedia CD-ROM

Online news/information services

1. America Online

2. Burrelle's Broadcast Database

3. Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia

4. DataTimes

5. DataStar

6. Dialog

7. Dow Jones Interactive

8. EBSCOhost

9. eLibrary

10. Encarta Online

11. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online

12. Funk and Wagnalls Multimedia Encyclopedia

13. GaleNet

14. Grolier Online

15. Grove's Dictionary of Art

16. Grove's Dictionary of Music

17. Information Please

18. LEXIS/NEXIS Services

19. NewsBank

20. OCLC

21. Ovid

22. Prodigy

23. ProQuest

24. SIRS

25. WebSPIRS

26. WilsonWeb

27. World Book Online Reference Center