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CHOICE Review
The American Library Association has published many bibliographies of reference sources that are useful to a wide range of readers. Much of the information for this new publication comes from the online Guide to Reference (CH, Sep'09, 47-0006). This handy, concise guide will be a useful resource for those who lack access to the electronic resource. The book is divided into two sections titled "Sociology" and "Psychology." "Sociology" has more entries and covers, among other topics, gerontology, ethnic studies, family issues, population studies, social problems, and women's studies. "Psychology" has more subsections and addresses developmental, educational, social, clinical, cognitive, physiological, and industrial psychology, as well as topics such as testing, research methodologies, and parapsychology. Both sections begin with coverage of general works, with other subdivisions following; e.g., "Sociology" features methods/statistics, childhood/adolescence, the Internet, death/dying, homelessness/hunger, marriage and the family, poverty, politics, social work, and more. Reference sources pertaining to various ethnic groups are covered in separate sections.The types of reference items included are atlases, bibliographies, dictionaries, directories, encyclopedias, guides, handbooks, indexes, and quotations sources. The paragraph-length entries are quite detailed, with the various sources' use of cross-references, bibliographic references, and indexes mentioned as appropriate. Readers will find many interesting titles, ranging from W. Stewart's Cassell's Queer Companion: A Dictionary of Lesbian and Gay Life and Culture (1995) and C. Quigley's Death Dictionary (CH, Jul'94, 31-5797; over 5,000 legal, clinical, and literary terms involving death) to R. Kearse's Street Talk (2006) and H. M. Lentz III's Assassinations and Executions (rev. ed., 2002). Another useful inclusion is C. B. Ruffin's Last Words: A Dictionary of Deathbed Quotations (CH, Nov'95, 33-1293). Few recent, comprehensive bibliographies cover both sociology and psychology, so this new guide will be a useful resource. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. V. Viator Nicholls State University
Booklist Review
In this guide, the sociology section's 636 annotated bibliographical entries and the psychology section's relatively sparse 96 appear to repeat, with some additional entries for sociology, those in the comparable sections of ALA's online Guide to Reference. Full bibliographic information is supplied, plus Dewey and Library of Congress catalog numbers. Helpful one- or two-paragraph annotations describe, provide context for, and evaluate each work. Most are print, but a small percentage are online resources. A brief editor's guide begins each of the book's two major sections, while an index of more than 30 pages aids access. With sociology and psychology generously subdivided by their different fields, each in turn subdivided by type of reference (encyclopedias, dictionaries, guides, bibliographies, etc.), this print guide will appeal especially to the more linear, less digitally oriented researcher.--Bunch, Crai. Copyright 2010 Booklist
