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What do vampires and Virginia Woolf  have in common?  No, they’re not part of the new fiction trend that Neil Hollands talks about over at Book Group Buzz (at least not yet). Instead, they both occupy space in Encyclopedia of Time: Science, Philosophy, Theology, & Culture, edited by H. James Birx and published by Sage.

Every so often I come across a reference work I can’t put down, and today I’ve spent  time (probably too much time) perusing Encyclopedia of Time. One of the things I’m enjoying is its scope. Where else could you find not only vampires and Virginia Woolf, but also amnesia, anthropology, Confucianism, the Grand Canyon, inflationary cosmology, dinosaurs, original sin, Pompeii, and time-release medications discussed within the same covers?  Of course, there are plenty of other sources online and in print to find information about most of the same topics, but seeing them brought together here gives me a different perspective. I’m a big believer in the importance of context, a critical advantage offered by a good reference source, and something lost to those whose primary reference tool is Google.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 11:57 am and is filed under In the News, Print Resources, Reference Sources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.