reference works

Springer Nature’s Major Reference Works (MRWs) portfolio features trusted, peer-reviewed, high-profile encyclopedias, handbooks, dictionaries, and atlases from the leading brands, Palgrave Macmillan and Springer. The references cover science, technology and medicine as well as engineering, business, economics, and more. They play an instrumental part as the foundational starting point for students, researchers, and professionals needing authoritative, expertly validated overviews of a field, topic, or concept.
References are one of the many book types offered by Springer Nature’s eBook Subject Collections which deliver a rich mix of book types for every level of learning and researching for library users, click to learn more.

What characterises reference works?
There are different types of reference works: encyclopaedias, handbooks and atlases. Print editions of reference works can be one single book, or a series covering several shelf metres. Electronic reference works can be free or a payment service. Some reference works are general, others are specific. One thing all reference works have in common is that they contain the most essential facts of a subject field and are alphabetically, or thematically organised. The information is often brief, like a definition, but lengthier articles may occur.

“”Every generation needs its own Dictionary of the Bible” (Introd.) and this work fills that need admirably. 1,000 contributors, mostly North American, have provided 6,200 entries, some as long as 40 pages; most have bibliographies. Entries cover every proper name, major words, each book of the Bible, Apocryphal texts, Dead Sea scrolls, and Nag Hamadi codices. Gives much attention to cultural history, social institutions, and method. In the area of word studies, this work does not attempt to supplant important previous publications such as The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Uses cross-references, but an index would improve access.” (Balay)
Also available in the Marvin H. Pope Biblical Studies Seminar Room.

Joseph C. Miller. Slavery : a worldwide bibliography, 1900-1982 / Joseph C. Miller. White Plains, N.Y. : Kraus International, 1985.
Africa, Asia, and South America since 1800 : a bibliographical guide / compiled by A.J.H. Latham. Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York : Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin’s Press, c1995.

References:

http://kildekompasset.no/source-evaluation/works-of-reference/what-are-reference-works.aspx
http://guides.library.yale.edu/c.php?g=295834&p=1972576
http://libguides.library.ohio.edu/c.php?g=217878&p=1439233
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Character-Reference