Reference Sources

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Reference Sources

• MIT 026B
• Winter 2002

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BackgroundInformation
Id 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.
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• Encyclopedia
• Dictionary
• Handbook
• Manual
• Yearbook

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(No Transcript)
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From the Oxford English Dictionary
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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?
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Almanac
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• Almanac
• Atlas
• Biographical Dictionary
• Directory

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Locating Other Sources of Information
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• Abstracts
• Bibliographies
• Indexes

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Reference Sources

• Where do we find them?

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Browsing the Reference Shelves
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Library Catalogue
History HistoryBibliography HistoryDictionaries
HistoryDirectories HistoryHandbooks, manuals,
etc. HistoryIndexes HistoryYearbooks
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Guides to Reference Works

• Print Sources
• UWO Library Web Page
• Resources by Subject
• Electronic Sources
• Librarians Index to the Internet
• --Reference desk
• http//www.lii.org/

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Evaluating Reference Sources

• Scope and coverage
• Timeliness
• Authority
• Presence of bibliographies and cross-references