State of the Art Surveys: Our Own State of the Art

With this issue of RSR we present the first of our annual subject surveys of new reference publications. Each survey is by a librarian who is actively involved in the selection and interpretation of reference materials in his subject field and thus is conversant with recent trends in publishing, pertinent bibliographic data bases, and emerging networks. Each is especially qualified to analyze these trends and to judge which reference books of the year past are outstanding. Mr. Balachandran, a reference librarian in the Commerce Library, University of Illinois, is primarily responsible for selecting reference materials and other monographic publications. He holds a master's degree in economics and a Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois. Jimmie Hoover, in addition to being Document Librarian at Louisiana State University since 1967, has edited recent editions of Bookman's Guide to Americana. In his survey of Documents reference he was assisted by Nancy demons, a colleague at LSU in the Documents Department, formerly Documents Librarian at Samford University Library in Birmingham, Alabama. Our specialist in children's reference, Alice Smith, has been until recently chair‐person of the Department of Library Science/Audio‐Visual Education at the University of South Florida. She is now devoting full time to teaching and writing. Dr. Smith has taught a wide range of courses in selection and reading guidance in the area of juvenile literature, including the History of Children's Literature, Building Library Collections, and Bibliotherapy. Jack Weigel has a B.S. in mathematics, a master's in physics and held successively the positions of Mathematics Librarian and Physics Librarian at Columbia University. He is now head of the Physics/Astronomy Library at the University of Michigan.