See, infra.
Robert McHenry: 'In this column I propose to deliver myself of sundry thoughts about and experiences with reference works, in general and in the particular, without program and in the sure and certain...
View ArticleKeats in the Ninth.
REFERENCE BOOKS HAVE, by convention, editors rather than authors. And not surprisingly editors will on rare occasion permit themselves a comment. These rules are, of course, subject to exception. Some...
View ArticleBlack snow fell in France.
By ROBERT McHENRY. WE OFTEN SAY “as white as snow,” but the Japanese, repeating the phrase on January 31, 1925, laughed; and on December 6, 1926, the French thought of the expression and howled. For on...
View ArticleMerriam’s ‘harmless drudges’.
Robert McHenry: 'I found the hush uncanny. I had come from the Chicago offices of Encyclopædia Britannica, where a very large and often boisterous staff had just finished work on the 15th Edition and...
View ArticleThe art of the cross-reference.
Robert McHenry: 'To a degree, the set of cross-references in a text comprises a sort of index-on-the-installment-plan (remembering that to index something is to point to it). They are more useful in...
View ArticleRefer Madness.
Robert McHenry: 'It is perhaps telling...that in his prologue to the book Lynch uses the words “information” and “knowledge” an equal number of times, but when, in the epilogue, he turns to Google and...
View ArticleLooking up Chinese metaphysics.
Robert McHenry: 'The question of how best to organize the information in an encyclopedia has no settled answer. Ought there to be a few long articles covering broad areas of knowledge, thus emphasizing...
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