Sources: Guide to Reference in Business and Economics
Guide to Reference in Business and Economics. Edited by Steven W. Sowards and Elizabeth Leonard. Chicago: ALA, 2014. 298 p. Paper $65 (ISBN: 978-0-8389-1234-8).
The Guide to Reference in Business and Economics, edited by Steven W. Sowards and Elisabeth Leonard, is an outstanding reference resource that will be beneficial to academic and public librarians as well as to LIS students, LIS faculty members, and some corporate librarians. The majority of the book’s content is derived from the “Economics and Business” section of ALA’s online guide Guide to Reference (www.guidetoreference.org) and has been carefully curated by the editors to ensure that high-quality resources are highlighted.
Academic, corporate, and public librarians (such as those with responsibility for reference, course-integrated instruction, and collection development) will find value in the book’s depth of content. The summary bibliographic information within the specific categories of each major heading is rich and includes ISBNs and URLs when applicable. The editors also have included several noteworthy print publications that are no longer in press.
LIS students and faculty will find this annotated work of more than 800 entries an extremely useful “fingertip guide” that can enhance and supplement course content. Beyond the classroom, the LIS educational community will also appreciate the annotations on various organizational and professional associations as another uniquely interesting element. Moreover, an entire chapter is dedicated to occupations and careers resources—critically important for LIS students and practitioners to keep at the ready for themselves and for those seeking credible information from largely nonprofit sources.
Students all across the higher education curriculum (especially business, economics, management, and law majors) will also find this guide to be very useful, both inside and outside of the academy. The wide range of contemporary resources covering economic conditions, world trade, and international information makes the book suitable for a wide range of course assignments. Additionally, the entry selections on many emerging interdisciplinary focus areas, including entrepreneurship/small business, business law, and human resources, are among the best available in a single guide.
The decision to offer to this guide in both print and electronic versions is also noteworthy. Many reference and user services practitioners will successfully argue the importance of providing both formats for a guide such as this in order to foster accessibility for use among a broad and diverse patron base.
This thoughtfully selected and well-organized resource guide is highly recommended.—Alexia Hudson-Ward, Associate Librarian, Penn State Abington, Abington, Pennsylvania