Mari Ellen Leverence will help her daughter Megan, 18, pack next month for college at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.
She’ll make certain her daughter has everything she needs-including a mini-library of reference books.
Leverence, who teaches a course on using libraries and is a reference librarian at Governors State University in University Park, knows just how handy a good reference book can be.
High on her list of dormitory-room resources for college students is a one-volume encyclopedia.
“It’s useful for writing a term paper at 2 a.m. when the library is closed and you need to know where Sri Lanka is located,” she said.
Leverence was recently asked that question at the Governors State’s library reference desk. She found the answer in Webster’s New World Encyclopedia (College Edition, Prentice-Hall, 1993).
With 1,000 pages or more, such encyclopedias are designed to tell readers a bit about nearly every subject.
Michael Gabriel, a reference librarian at Roosevelt University in Chicago, said these books “contain general information that a person should have at his fingertips.”
Other basic references students might want, Leverence said, include a dictionary, a style manual, a thesaurus, an almanac, a book of quotations, U.S. statistical information, and a handbook or dictionary in a student’s major field of study.
A local phone directory, a first-aid handbook, favorite magazine articles and a biography of a person relevant to a student’s major are additional reference suggestions.
Even in this computerized age of unlimited information, observers say there’s value in building a ready reference library.
“If you have to turn on your computer and dial in (to an information source), it’s just as easy to pull a book off the shelf,” said Gregory Morrison, a reference librarian at Wheaton College’s Buswell Memorial Library.
“There’s the feeling of holding a book in your hand,” he said. “Because we are concrete beings, what the computer has to offer won’t always satisfy us.”
Reference books enable students to “look up a quick definition or a quick fact,” said William McHugh, reference collection management librarian at Northwestern University, Evanston. “For basic facts, it’s easier to have them at hand. Personally, I like to look things up myself.”
A dictionary is the mainstay of any reference library.
“If I’m writing a humanities paper, I sometimes consult a dictionary to check spellings of words that are not on my computer’s spelling dictionary,” said John Devona, 20, a senior majoring in marketing at Notre Dame.
Common biographical and geographical names, for example, may not appear in a computerized spell checker, but they are listed in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Merriam-Webster, 1993). Leverence recommends this edition because it addresses the needs of college students, such as a word’s etymology.
A dictionary that traces the etymology, or root word, may give students a better understanding of a word’s meaning. At Governors State’s library reference desk, Leverence frequently receives etymological questions.
She also prefers a dictionary that offers multiple word definitions, from the most commonly used to the least.
When looking for a dictionary to buy, students “should spend some time examining how easy it is to use,” McHugh said.
He advised comparing word entries among several dictionaries before buying one. If the definitions in one book are “much clearer and fuller, that tells you something” about the book’s quality, he said.
For those who wish to investigate the subject further, McHugh suggested they consult a dictionary buying guide at a library, such as Kister’s Best Dictionaries for Adults and Young People: A Comparative Guide.
The name Webster, which is not copyrighted, is no assurance of excellence; many publishers use it in their dictionary titles.
Dictionaries also are available for specific fields of study. The Harper Dictionary of Economics (HarperCollins, 1991) and Mosby’s Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health (Mosby Yearbook, 1990) are two examples.
A thesaurus is another basic reference tool. Of the many thesauruses available, Roget’s International Thesaurus (HarperCollins, 1993) and Webster’s Collegiate Thesaurus (Merriam-Webster, 1976) often are recommended by reference librarians for listings of synonyms and antonyms.
A thesaurus that lists words in alphabetical, rather than categorical, order may save time and be easier to use, Morrison said. A categorical listing groups words under specific concepts, such as space, physics, matter and intellect, which can be “a bit inaccessible for students,” he said.
A world almanac, especially those published annually in paperback, is an inexpensive tool for students. “We keep back issues of them because they have good topical information” and statistics about history, demographics and personalities, Gabriel noted.
The World Almanac and Book of Facts (Funk & Wagnalls, 1994) is among many from which to choose, Leverence said. It includes topics such as the consumer price index, lists such as members of the 103rd Congress and National Hockey League standings, and illustrations such as every nation’s flag and colored maps of the world, she added.
Once a student has completed his research, he will want to ensure that the paper conforms to his college’s style for composition and for listing a bibliography. “Certainly a student will benefit if he has one of these general style manuals,” Gabriel said.
Popular ones include A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses & Dissertations (University of Chicago Press, 1980), Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 1983), MLA Style Manual (Modern Language Association, 1985) and The Chicago Manual of Style (University of Chicago Press, 1993).
Gabriel advised students to ask their professors which stylebooks to buy.
Students’ general questions about English grammar may be answered in a comprehensive dictionary or stylebook. Specific grammar and word-usage books with literary analyses and glossaries also may benefit students, Gabriel said.
Books such as Webster’s New World Student Writing Handbook (Simon & Schuster Trade, 1988) or Webster’s Secretarial Handbook (Merriam-Webster, 1984) go beyond basic grammar and discuss word usage, Gabriel and McHugh said.
Depending on students’ needs, these reference works could be helpful:
– A book of quotations, such as Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (Little, Brown, 1992). Leverence, however, recommended a different book to her daughter: The Beacon Book of Quotations by Women (Beacon Press, 1992). Leverence said she prefers this book for her daughter because it’s “just what a woman needs when she goes off to college to counteract any slanting of one gender over another.”
– For technical or scientific queries, the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (CRC Press, 1993) or more than 31 other science-related CRC references in topics such as laboratory safety, analytic chemistry, hospital safety or mathematics.
– The Statistical Abstract of the United States (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993). It provides American-based statistics about topics such as foreign trade, suicide rates, proficiency test scores and demographics, Gabriel said.
– An atlas, such as The Rand McNally Road Atlas (Rand McNally, 1992).
Though it may appear the number of reference books is unlimited, students’ book-buying budgets rarely are. So how does a student know which book is a good buy?
Reference librarians suggest that students visit a library and review several books before buying them. By giving them a trial run, students may be able to make informed decisions by answering these questions:
– Which are easiest to use?
– Which provide adequate information?
– Are the contents and indexes precise?
While at the reference desk, students should ask for a book that reviews reference books, Morrison said. American Reference Book Annual and Guide to Reference Books are two he recommends.
“Look through them by subject and then read a short review noting the value and usefulness of the book,” Morrison said.
After finding a suitable book, Leverence said, students should write down the title, author and the International Standard Book Number located on the book’s copyright page or listed in yet another reference book, Books in Print. This will enable them to more easily order the book from a discount bookstore.
Some students may have the beginnings of a reference library.
When La Grange native Missy deJourno, 18, was working late on a report about health-conscious eating for a freshman class at the University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse, she referred to a manual she received as a freshman at Lyons Township High School South in Western Springs to find the proper format for listing personal interviews in her bibliography.
“A lot of high school students don’t think they’ll use those books again,” said DeJourno, a sophomore in physical therapy. “My high school teacher told me to keep those reference books for college. I kept them, and they helped.” She often refers to a style manual, dictionary and thesaurus.
“I am definitely glad I kept old textbooks-that’s the beginning of my reference library,” said Martha Peavey, a graduate student in theater directing at Roosevelt. She also favors biographies and magazine articles when she is researching at home.
“Go to biographies,” Peavey said. “They are usually about the leaders and creative thinkers in a field, and they will lead you to other sources and ways of looking at the subject matter.”
Peavey also incorporates an interdisciplinary approach in her work.
“To get a sense of the bigger picture that surrounds an individual event,” she uses The Timetables of History: Horizontal Linkage of People and Events (Simon & Schuster, 1982). It features history, art, literature, religion and philosophy from 5000 B.C. to 1978 A.D.
She also likes books about the history of opera or the lives of great composers because sometimes they include references to a play she is researching.
