Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

Questions keep us in business.  I am sure that most of us became reference librarians because we love looking for answers. We would be excellent detectives if we ever decide to change careers. Our patrons expect us to find the answers and even hope that we will do their assignments, but there are some questions [...]

ALA Editions’ newest reference source is the 2nd edition of Saricks’ Readers’ Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction. A long time favorite of LIS educators and readers’ advisory for its overviews of 16 genres of popular fiction, lists of Sure Bets and RA interview advice for genre readers.

Reference on your iPhone?  Besides providing a way for iPhone and iTouch users to find their way around the Duke University campus, review the course catalog, and search for events, DukeMobile now offers 32,000 images from Duke’s Digital Library Collection. Duke is the first institution to offer access to images and materials in this way, but [...]

I have on my desk a copy of the eighth edition of Facts About the Presidents, one of those reference standards that belong in almost every library collection. The first seven editions were edited by Joseph Nathan Kane who, though he died in 2002 (at the age of 103), is still credited as the editor. That’s [...]

This summer I am teaching the required course in reference and information services for the MLIS program at St Catherine’s University in St. Paul, MN. For most of the students this is the second or third class and many are still unsure what kind of library work they want to do after graduation.
Over the [...]

Welcome to Points of Reference, the newest Booklist blog. The Reference Books Bulletin section of Booklist reviews several hundred reference resources every year, but we’ve never had a space to talk about what’s going on at the reference desk or in reference publishing–until now. Over the next few weeks, you’ll start seeing posts from me [...]