Reference Sources MIT 026B Winter 2002

Background Information I’d like you to write a paper on the history of information theory from the end of World War II to the rise of the World Wide Web in the 1980s.

Encyclopedia Dictionary Handbook Manual Yearbook

From the Oxford English Dictionary

Locating Facts or Specific Details In the 1960s, the average size of an American family was…. Well, let me see…. Greg, Marcia, Jan, Peter, Cindy, Bobby…. Would I count Alice?

Almanac

Atlas Biographical Dictionary Directory

Locating Other Sources of Information

Abstracts Bibliographies Indexes

Reference Sources: Where do we find them?

Browsing the Reference Shelves

Library Catalogue History History—Bibliography History—Dictionaries History—Directories History—Handbooks, manuals, etc. History—Indexes History—Yearbooks

Guides to Reference Works Print Sources: UWO Library Web Page: “Resources by Subject” Electronic Sources: Librarians’ Index to the Internet --Reference desk

Evaluating Reference Sources Scope and coverage Timeliness Authority Presence of bibliographies and cross-references