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Reference Sources - Traditional and Online
Reference sources give concise introductions to topics and/or provide brief and specific information. Reference sources include encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs and fact books, biographical sources and geographical sources. A reference tool can be used by itself as a source of information without the use of a second source of information. These are not the type of books you usually read from cover to cover. Instead you use them to locate an answer. To use any reference source effectively, the researcher must determine the source's purpose, scope and arrangement. Reference sources usually have an access component - such as an index - that helps the user find information elsewhere in the tool itself. It is important to look for indexes and other access keys in reference tools, although sometimes there is no need for an index because the entire tool is in alphabetical order (like a dictionary, for instance). The reference tools in the library at Cleveland Community are shelved together and may not be checked out. This is how reference materials are treated in almost all libraries. Our reference collection contains many tools that will be useful in the course of your studies here. Also, the Internet has many online reference sources with very valuable information. Following is an introduction to some of the reference materials - print and online - that you might find useful.
Almanacs and fact books, sometimes referred to as ready reference, are good places to look up a quick fact, but you would need to go elsewhere for in-depth information. You can use an almanac to find out who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1945 or how many pounds of potatoes were exported by Idaho last year. Examples of almanacs and fact books are Information Please Almanac, World Almanac and Book of Facts, The African American Almanac,and Statistical Abstract of the United States. General almanacs and fact books are classified in the AY section of reference. The following are links to some excellent online sources for facts and statistics. Statistical Abstract of the United States
CIA World FactBook
Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
Information Please: Your Ultimate Fact Finder
These sources may include people from many subject areas, but are often specific to one field, like music, or geographic area, like a state or region. Biographical reference sources can tell you how old Dan Rather is or why Franklin Roosevelt was in a wheel chair. Examples of biographical reference sources are Almanac of Famous People, Great Lives From History, and People Who Shaped the Century. These general biographical sources can be found in the CT section of the library. Other biographical sources can be found in particular subject areas of the reference collection. Some excellent examples are Dictionary of Scientific Biography, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and Great Artists of the Western World. Use the links below to find biographical information on the internet. Biography.com
U*X*L Encyclopedia of World Biography (password required) The Biographical Dictionary
The most familiar reference sources with information about places are altases - collections of maps. Because most atlases are very oversized, the Library at Cleveland Community College shelves them in a special collection at the end of the reference shelves. (Just look for the globe.) Other reference sources with geographical information include gazateers and geographical dictionaries and directories, such as Webster's New Geographical Dictionary, Columbia Gazateer of the World and Oxford Dictionary of the World. Geographical sources can be found in the G section of reference or on the internet at the following locations. Sanborn Maps North Carolina - Digital access to large-scale maps of 158 North Carolina towns and cities with the ability to manipulate, magnify and zoom in on specific sections, and compare maps from different years. (If you are not on the campus, you will need the passwords which are available to all Cleveland's students. Then use the ALPHABETIC list to go to this resource.) MapQuest - Create street maps for specific U.S. addresses or cities
Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names - Search for location and categorization of geographic names
Geography (what you need to know about) - Good source for all types of maps and geographic information, with word search options included
National Atlas of the United States - Provides an interactive map of the U.S.
Perry-Castaņeda Library Map Collection - Historical maps
Specialized encyclopedias may cover just one field, like literature, or even a sub-unit of that field, like contemporary literary criticism. Subject encyclopedias, such as Praeger Encyclopedia of Art, The Encyclopedia of Careers and Vocational Guidance, Encyclopedia of Computer Science or International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, can be consulted for more detailed or technical information on a subject. While most libraries have bound volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Americana, and other general and specialized encyclopedias, these great sources of information are now also available via the internet. Encyclopedia Americana
North Carolina Encyclopedia
Columbia Encyclopedia. 6th ed. (via bartlby.com)
NC LIVE Encyclopedias
The Oxford English Dictionary, an etymological masterpiece, is considered to be the authority on the meaning and history of 500,000 words in the English language. Other references about words include thesauruses, such as Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, used to locate synonyms, translation dictionaries such as Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary, and special references such as Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, and Abbreviations Dictionary. General dictionaries and other references about words are located in the PE section of the reference collection. Also, some good sources for information about words and language can be accessed online at the following sites. American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. (via Bartleby.com)
One Look Dictionaries
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, 3rd ed. (via Bartleby.com)
The Online English Grammar, by Anthony Hughes
Oxford English Dictionary(available on campus only)
Gale Virtual Reference Library is a searchable collection of online reference books published by Gale. Your NCLive password is required.
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