The Oxford Guide to Library Research (4th edition)

This book has been published on an approximately decennial basis since it first appeared in 1987 as A Guide to Library Research Methods. The two subsequent editions, both published under the current title, were reviewed in these columns (RR 1999/037 and (RR 2006/234), the latter at length by the present reviewer. All the editions are the work of Thomas Mann, who recently retired after 30 years as a general reference librarian in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress. In my previous review, I concluded by hailing Mann’s work as an “excellent little book” that...