University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

REFERENCE COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT ASSIGNMENT

The purpose of this assignment is to help you become familiar with review sources for reference materials and provide you with experience in evaluating and selecting the best materials from a pool of items. Please do this assignment individually. This assignment represents 5% of your final grade.

Traditionally, reference librarians used to select items based on, among other things, the quality of reviews those items receive. Assuming you are encountered with a decision to select or deselect the following item: The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, edited by John Bowker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), please answer the following questions:

a. How many reviews did this item receive? (you should find at least 10 different reviews for this reference book). List the bibliographic information of the reviews you found.

b. Which sources (e.g., indexes & abstracts, reviewing sources, etc.) did you use to find these reviews? (list them and indicate the format—print or electronic—of each source you used)

c. Based on the guidelines for evaluating reference materials that were distributed to you in class, discuss, in less than 250 words, which review you think is the best and why. Hint: To answer this question, you must first explain who your audience is.