Reference Collection

The Reference Collection is located on the Main Floor directly across from the entrance. These materials do not leave the library so that they are always available. The call numbers begin with R.

Reference books are intended to provide an overview of a topic and are especially useful for getting started with research or choosing a topic. Examples of reference sources are encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, biographical dictionaries, directories, bibliographies, statistical sources, and atlases.

The library has many multivolume sets of specialized encyclopedias on specific topics. The articles in these sources are lengthy and written by specialists in the field unlike the shorter articles in a general encyclopedia such as the World Book.

In addition, reference sources may also be found in electronic format. For example, the library subscribes to the Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, a science encyclopedia called Access Science, and to the Oxford English Dictionary Online.

For more information on online sources available in this library, see Research Databases by Subject for a description of each database.

Students are encouraged to begin their research with reference sources, both to gather background information and as a strategy for identifying relevant search terms related to a topic.