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RR 2015/281 The Oxford Guide to Library Research (4th edition) Thomas Mann Oxford University Press New York and Oxford 2015 xxx + 359 pp. ISBN 978 0 19 993104 0 (hbck); ISBN 978 0 19 993106 4 (pbck); ISBN 978 0 19 993105 7 (e-book) £48 $74 (hbck); £16.99 $24.95 (pbck)
Keywords Guides and handbooks, Libraries, Research work
Review DOI 10.1108/RR-09-2015-0220
This book has been published on an approximately decennial basis since it first appeared in 1987 as A Guide to Library Research Methods. The two subsequent editions, both published under the current title, were reviewed in these columns (RR 1999/037 and (RR 2006/234), the latter at length by the present reviewer. All the editions are the work of Thomas Mann, who recently retired after 30 years as a general reference librarian in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress. In my previous review, I concluded by hailing Mann's work as an "excellent little book" that was "a splendidly navigated voyage through the traditional channels and ports of the reference world" most likely to benefit researchers at postgraduate level and above and information specialists working in or using research libraries. Much has changed over the past 10 years and the focus of this review, given our previous extensive treatment of the third edition, will be on Mann's revisions and additions to this edition and whether the book is still worthy of the accolade "excellent".
With 359 main and 30 preliminary pages, this book is considerably longer than its predecessor that offered 313 pages, 20 of them devoted to the prelims. The number of main chapters is, however, the same at 15, with...