Information Sources in Science and Technology (Library Science Text)

Book by Hurt, C.D.

Hurt, director of the Graduate Library School at the University of Arizona, is a well-known expert on the literature of the sciences. The second edition of his guide to the literature of science and technology, originally published in 1988, has undergone substantial change. The history chapter has been dropped and this material incorporated within each subject chapter. The number of chapters has been expanded from 17 to 20 with an additional 50 pages added to the text. Although the number of numbered entries has increased by only 41, this is somewhat misleading. Some chapters have slight increases in their numbered entries; for example, "Astronomy" from 83 to 89. But an "Electronic Sources" section has been added at the end of all but four of the chapters, listing more than 700 unnumbered citations to the Internet.

This book is organized in five sections: "Multidisciplinary Sources of Information," "The Biological Sciences," "The Physical Sciences and Mathematics," "Engineering," and "Health and Veterinary Sciences." Within sections, chapters are arranged alphabetically (e.g., "Biology," "Botany," "Zoology"). Typically, a chapter will list such sources as guides to the literature, abstracts and indexes, dictionaries, and handbooks. Each entry has full bibliographic information, including ISBN. The critical annotations vary in length from one sentence to a paragraph. Emphasis is upon English-language materials, but some French, German, and Russian sources are also examined. The online versions of sources are noted (e.g., CA Search, CAS Online) but usually not the CD-ROM version. Author-title and subject indexes assist users in locating entries. The Internet sources are not indexed.

A comparable title is Scientific and Technical Information Sources by Chen (MIT, 1987), which covers 5,300 titles and provides one-sentence annotations. In contrast, Hurt has 2,052 entries with lengthier annotations plus citations to the Internet. While Hurt is more current, this book is not as current as its publication date would indicate. Many important 1992 titles are not included, for example, Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology, Who's Who in Science and Engineering, and the seventh edition of the McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology (the sixth edition from 1987 is listed). Grzimek's Encyclopedia of Mammals (1990) is also not listed. There are few 1993 books.

Despite some problems with currency, this guide will be useful in academic and public libraries, especially for its list of Internet sources. It is also available on floppy disk from the publisher.