Refernece Books

• Crash Course in Reference by Charlotte Ford (Libraries Unlimited, 2008, 143 p., $_____, ISBN: 1591584639)

  The purpose of the Crash Course series of books is to provide much more brief textbooks and brush-up guides to various topics often taught in library school. Ford, a professor at the University of Alabama provides this guide to becoming a whizbang of a reference genius who “might not know anything, but give me five minutes and I’ll find it!” She covers serving patrons and building search skills in print sources as well as online searching. So, if you’d like to check out the current skills expected of these super teacher librarians, this is a good choice. Recommended.

   

• 100 most popular nonfiction authors : biographical sketches and bibliographies by Bernard A. Drew (Libraries Unlimited, 2008, 459 pp. $_____, ISBN: 9781591584872)

  For high school students who have grown out of those juvenile novels and series books to become more sophisticated readers, they are often in search of more substantive nonfiction materials and authors who might stimulate interest both in major fields to major in during college, but also to stimulate personal exploration of new ideas. This collection of biogrphical sketches complete with lists of works written and sources for further information provides a guide to the major nonfiction authors of our time. You recognize such authors such as Frank McCord, David McCullough, Stephen Hawking and Bob Woodward, but there are a host of other authors we as reader’s advisors should know and be able to recommend. So, if you can afford this volume, it is a fine guide to the adult literature our teens should be familiar with before they go to college or into a specialty area. One negative is the index to genres in the back of the book. We wish the author would have included the namesWhile you could Google every author included, the compilation of “the best” does have merit. Recommended.