Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Reference Reviews, Volume 23, Issue 7

The purchase of Blackwell by Wiley in February 2007 was met with some apprehension in the reference world, one of the fears being that the predominantly humanities and social sciences titles produced by the Oxford based Blackwell would be submerged under the science and technology dominated Wiley brand. So far at least, such concerns have proved unfounded. The various Blackwell Companions series continue apace, featuring regularly in these columns and represented in this issue by A Companion to Arthurian Literature (RR 2009/314), a volume in the Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture series. Most significantly, the Blackwell editorial offices continue to produce innovative new major encyclopedic sets. Earlier in this volume we reviewed The International Encyclopedia of Communication (RR 2009/013) produced in conjunction with the International Communication Association and released as an online work and in twelve printed volumes. Now Blackwell (under the Wiley-Blackwell label) has released The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present, again both as an online resource and a printed set, in this case in eight volumes. A major landmark in politics and history reference, this will be a significant resource for many libraries, especially in the academic sector. Most importantly, and seeming to signify continued activity by the Blackwell arm of Wiley in the humanities and social sciences field, the online version is scheduled for annual updating (for more details on the entire project see www.revolutionprotestencyclopedia.com/public/).

The editor of The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protestis Immanuel Ness, professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College in New York. By one of those strange quirks of coincidence that cannot go unrecorded,Ness is also joint editor of a title reviewed just a few pages previously, The Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History (RR 2009/307), a single volume from the smaller, privately held new York state based, publisher M.E Sharpe. The company’s Sharpe Reference imprint has produced a number of well-regarded recent titles on aspects of US social history, including American Countercultures, reviewed in the previous issue (RR 2009/295). Titles in the pipeline include encyclopedias on Latino history and culture and Asian American history and culture, both of which we aim to cover in these columns.

Until the last few years Asian Americans had been the subject of few reference works. Recently a number of specialist resources have appeared,especially in the sphere of literature and the arts, including the Alexander Street Press database Asian American Drama (RR 2003/340) and Asian American Short Story Writers (RR 2004/018) from Greenwood Press. The latter publisher has now produced the much larger Greenwood Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature in three volumes which, with 272 entries for authors, genres, themes and events, will tend to overshadow earlier works such as Facts on File’s Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature. In mentioning Greenwood we should also signal that the publisher has now released The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing through American History (RR 2009/308) in two volumes, a set which is effectively the US specific version of The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing through World History (RR 2009/011).

Another major encyclopedia we review is the second edition of Gale’s Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture (RR 2009/349). Published in six volumes, this replaces the first edition of 1996, established as the standard general reference on the history and culture of the continent. A completely new regional/country encyclopedia is Brill’s Encyclopedia of China (RR 2009/348). This is a translation of a work published in 2008 in German as Das Grosse China-Lexicon. The German title is an indication that the work mainly comprises short entries and, while comprehensive and more academic than the earlier Encyclopedia of China published in 1996 (RR 1999/289), needs to be considered alongside the just released and much larger five volume Berkshire Encyclopedia of China (www.berkshirepublishing.com/brw/product.asp?projID=65),a review of which will shortly appear. Brill is also the new publisher of Linguistic Bibliography (RR 2009/319), the long established annual issued under the auspices of the Permanent International Committee on Linguistics. In addition to publishing the print edition, Brill will also make the bibliography available online in an enhanced format; further information can be obtained at www.lingusiticbibliography.com

Other online sources we look at in this issue are the newly launched JURN(RR 2009/302), a search tool for open access journals in the arts and humanities maintained from the UK, Eternal Egypt (RR2009/339), a site on ancient Egypt that deserves wider exposure from the Egyptian Center for Documentation of Cultural and National Heritage, The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960-1974 (RR2009/345), another offering from the well-regarded purveyor of full text resources Alexander Street Press, and GreenFILE (RR 2009/329),a freely available database of nearly 400,000 records from EBSCO of articles relating to “all aspects of human impact to the environment”. This is a valuable reference source of use to both the researcher and general user. Interestingly, Gale (Cengage), one of several companies engaged in fierce competition with EBSCO for market share in the indexing/fulltext/reference database market, has recently announced the release of GREENR: Global Reference on the Environment, Energy and Resources (see press release at www.cengage.com/press/release/20090312b.html),a resource we will be taking a look at in a forthcoming issue.

Alongside these environmentally focussed electronic resources are a burgeoning range of print reference publications which are increasingly focussed on the “big issue” of climate change and its impacts. We recently reviewed The Complete Guide to Climate Change (RR 2009/171)from Routledge and here we cover ABC-Clio’s Climate Change: A Reference Handbook (RR 2009/323). Forthcoming reviews will include Climate Change in Context, a two volume set from Gale, and The Oxford Companion to Climate Change from Oxford University Press. Directing enquirers to authoritative and reliable reference material is probably one of the most useful contributions reference and information professionals can make to the long term understanding and combating of climate change. Reference Reviews will seek to assist with this process by providing further reviews of new and relevant materials in this area in future issues.

Tony ChalcraftEditor, Reference Reviews and University Librarian, York St John University, York, UK