General Reference Works

Abstract

I have noised complaints for some time now about the decline in the number and quality of printed reference materials. But the number, the variety, and the quality of the items parading before me this year lessen my concern. Handbooks and companions continue to proliferate, but dictionaries and encyclopedias have certainly not been crowded off the reference shelf altogether. The current array of publications includes solid work with a historical orientation, interesting contributions to the literatures of groups and regions and places, volumes addressing the increasingly insistent topics of gay and lesbian literature and the literature of the environment, and—the greatest number—materials focused on specific genres in their American manifestations, ranging from the Gothic and science fiction through the slave narrative and autobiography to the novel, poetry, and drama. Fortunate is the reference librarian who has not been totally transformed into an Internet-bound information specialist.