Animal Rights: A Subject Guide, Bibliography, and Internet Companion - Hardcover

Kistler, John M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0313312311 ISBN 13: 9780313312311

Publisher: Greenwood, 2000

Synopsis

Introductions to each chapter explain the issues, as well as the arguments that surround them, and a general introduction to the volume thoroughly explains how to use the book. Each entry contains the following information: author, title, edition, series title, location of publisher, name of publisher, number of pages, year of publication, and International Standard Book Number. Annotations include the most important information available to help the researcher, including web sites that contain not only the full text of the book when available, but also excerpts and articles or interviews by the author; short quotations from the books; and short descriptions and summaries of the books. All the information provided allows students to locate exactly what they need, while encouraging them to explore other issues and differing viewpoints.

About this title

About the Author

JOHN M. KISTLER is Acquisitions Librarian at Utah State University./e

Reviews

The author has compiled this annotated listing of more than 900 print and electronic resources to provide access to "every aspect of animals rights, from vegetarianism to vivisection to feminist perspectives." The work is divided into six major sections: general works; "Animal Natures," dealing with the results of scientific studies; "Fatal Uses of Animals"; "Non-Fatal Uses of Animals"; "Animal Populations," dealing with endangered and extinct species; and "Animal Speculations," dealing with religious or "paranormal" perspectives. More than 1,100 Internet sites are referenced in annotations for the works to which they relate.Each major section begins with an essay on the themes and kinds of materials that are represented. Entries are numbered and arranged alphabetically by author, editor, or responsible organization. The six subject areas are simply too broad for most subject or form-oriented searches and should have been subdivided by much narrower topics or special formats. For example, some of the items in the chapter on animal populations deal with particular species or types of species; others are particular parts of the world or types of environments. If these kinds of themes, along with generic categories related to conservation, preservation, and extinction, had been used as a basis for the arrangement of the 180 works in this section, topical browsability would have been greatly enhanced. Lacking such highly desirable access in the main arrangement, one is left to the alphabetical index at the end of the volume for specific subject searches. But this index also fails to support subject access. It gives easy and thorough access to authors' and editors' names and to names of organizations but not to specific topics. The particular topics of many listed works are not indexed. Take, for example, item number 65r: "Over-population of Cats and Dogs: Causes, Effects, and Prevention"; there is no index heading for cats, nor for dogs. Given the sparse level of subject analysis of individual items, users interested in particular animals or species and similar narrow topics are poorly served both by the main arrangement and by the index.Another serious technical error in the index is that page numbers are used to refer to particular entries. Why are entries numbered, if these entry numbers are not used as index referents? Using page numbers forces the user to scout through an entire page to find the entry that relates to the index heading. Libraries with users interested in animal rights will want this compilation. It is unfortunate that the arrangement of this useful material is not more user-friendly, both in the main arrangement and in the index. REVWR
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Edition details

• Publisher: Greenwood
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0313312311
• ISBN 13: 9780313312311
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 248