|
School Library Journal,
August 2004
Reference
Reviews (UK), October 2003
American Reference
Books Annual, 2003
Review from:
School Library Journal, August 2004
Professional Tools—Each
of the H.W. Wilson Standard Catalogs, cornerstones for collection
development for decades, is a selective annotated list of recommended
titles arranged by Dewey Decimal numbers. Librarians using specific
evaluative criteria have chosen the books. Each catalog provides annotated
entries for thousands of books and other resources, offering data valuable
for collection development and maintenance, information verification,
selection and purchasing, readers' advisory, and general reference. The
standard catalogs can also serve as guidelines in weeding collections. An
annual paperback volume containing approximately 600 titles supplements
the basic, hardcover volume. A new master catalog is published every five
years. Author, title, and subject indexes are included.
These additional online
features make the catalogs even more valuable for collection development
and curriculum support: Entries link to additional review excerpts from
Wilson's Book Review Digest database. The review links in the
Standard Catalogs online are to citations, review excerpts, and full text
from Book Review Digest Plus, which incorporates all the book
reviews in all the Wilson databases—at no extra cost.
-
Retrieve records in machine-readable
MARC format.
-
Instantly check your library's holdings
via a link to your OPAC.
-
Search descriptive and critical
annotations for specific words.
-
Search simultaneously all subscribed
Standard Catalogs or other Wilson databases.
At this time the MARC records
can be viewed, but not downloaded. By the end of
2004 Wilson will have a new
MARC record display that will allow customers to copy and save the MARC
records. Hopefully the MARC records can be saved in a file type that can
be imported into the popular school library media center automation
programs.
The Children’s Catalog
includes fiction and nonfiction, story collections, picture books and
magazines for readers in pre-school through sixth grade. Both the Middle and Junior High School Library Catalog (grades 5-8), and
Senior High School Library Catalog (grades 9-12) includes
fiction, nonfiction, CD-ROMs, curriculum support materials, and
professional aids for school library media specialists. Entries in all
catalogs provide complete bibliographic data, price, subject headings, a
descriptive annotation, and evaluative quotations from a review when
available. The list of recommended Web sites includes both subscription
databases and free Web sites, including the publisher's name and phone
number, price, grade level, and URL.
Basic searching of the
catalogs is by natural language or Boolean operators. Advanced searching
combines Boolean searching with the option to narrow the term search to
one of over 25 options such as: author, reading level, physical
description, etc. In addition, you can limit advanced searching by dates
(enter years) document type, and physical description (both drop down
menus).
School districts with
centralized processing should subscribe to the online versions of these
databases. Individual schools would have to determine the extent to which
the catalog(s) would be used. Some factors to consider might be extra
funding to improve the collection, validation of the "worthlessness" of
the existing collection, improving specific and weak areas of the
collection, etc. The Catalogs are an established resource for evaluating a
collection in general, for timeliness, coverage, etc. They are especially
useful to schools with limited budgets—and pay for themselves easily—by
assuring that you don't spend money on anything that's not good. As for
weeding, just because a title drops out of one of the Catalogs doesn't
mean it should be weeded. That depends on many factors. But the Catalogs
can alert you to the existence of a newer or better book on the subject.
Reviewed by Terrence E. Young, Jr.
Review
from:
Reference Reviews (UK), Vol. 17 (7), October 2003
It has been said that while
librarians might not necessarily know everything, they do know how to find
everything. For the past 77 years, that task has been made easier by
Wilson's Senior High School Library Catalog, recognized by high
school librarians as one of the premier retrospective selection tools
available for books geared to young adults in grades 9 through 12. First
published in 1926, the Catalog has assisted generations of
librarians in developing brand new collections or maintaining the quality
of existing ones.
With the publication of the
sixteenth edition, the Catalog continues its tradition of providing
a core list of fiction and non-fiction books, professional materials and
also now including, for the first time, recommended Web-based resources.
This edition has entries for 5,321 titles and, in one of its best
features, provides exhaustive analytical indexing (9,123 entries) for
parts of books.
The entries, organized by
Dewey number, include newer titles, still-in-print classics, and even some
out-of-print titles that are, according to the preface, "considered
essential to a well-rounded collection." As in previous editions,
each entry includes publication information, Sears subject headings
and a short annotation. Although the annotations often include part of a
published review, the lack of a full citation might frustrate those who
want to search for the complete evaluation. Also, the entries do not give
any indication of awards received.
Since selection sources can
quickly go out of date on current event and scientific topics, the problem
of currency cannot be avoided. Those interested in selecting resources
related to the September 11th terrorist attacks, for example,
will only find an index heading for "World Trade Center Bombing, New
York, NY, 1993," which directs you to a book published in 2000. On
the other hand, the Catalog does list two recent publications on
Afghanistan: Ansary's (2002) West of Kabul, East of New York, and
Marsden's (2002) The Taliban, both published in 2002. Four annual
supplements, published between 2003 and 2006, will also augment the
current print publication.
The list of recommended Web
sites, which replaces the CD-ROM section in the previous edition, is
limited, but it does provide a fine cross-section of those both freely
available or accessible on subscription. The list is arranged
alphabetically, and not grouped by subject, which makes it somewhat
difficult to navigate. The index also only lists the Web sites by title,
and not under relevant subject headings.
The sixteenth edition of Senior
High School Library Catalog, while not a definitive source, still
lives up to its reputation of providing an excellent resource for
collection development and maintenance. With the addition of Web sites, it
has responded to the reality of the twenty-first century high school
library media center, which provides access to online information just as
readily as to print or audiovisual material. Any high school librarian
would benefit from this resource, as long as supplementary selection
sources are used for special collections, current topics or titles, and
audio-visual items.
Reviewed by Michelle Crowell
Fossum, Librarian, Oakland Catholic
High School, Pittsburgh, PA.
Review from:
American Reference
Books Annual, 2003
The 16th edition of
Senior High School Library Catalog is a selective list of fiction
and nonfiction books for young adults in grades 9-12, review sources and
other professional aids for librarians and school media specialists, and
essential Web-based reference sources (replacing the list of CD-ROMs in
the previous edition.) The availability of a CD-ROM version of a print
equivalent is indicated in the entry for the print version is indicated in
the "Classified List."
This edition includes 5,321
titles and 9,123 analytical entries for parts of books. Four annual
supplements to this volume are planned for publication in 2003, 2004,
2005, and 2006. Selections for inclusion in the Catalog were made
by a committee that included librarians with experience in the needs of
young adults.
The Catalog is divided into 3
main sections. Part 1, the "Classified Catalog," is arranged by
the Dewey Decimal Classification for nonfiction, followed by fiction and
story collections. Part 2 is the "List of Recommended Web
Resources." Part 3 is the "Author, Title, Subject, and
Analytical Index" and serves as a comprehensive key to the
"Classified List." Each entry in Part 1 includes author (printed
in bold type and given in conformity with AACR, 2, 1998 revision), title,
publisher, publication date, numbers of pages, price, classification
number derived from the 13th edition of the abridged Dewey
Decimal Classification, recommended subject headings based on Sears
List of Subject Headings, and ISBN and LC numbers. Following
this information are three notes: the first is a description of the book’s
content, the second is a critical note from Publisher’s Weekly,
and the third describes special features of the item. Part 2, "List
of Recommended Web Resources," includes both commercial
subscription-based databases and free Websites, all listed in a single
alphabet. Each entry includes bibliographic information, publisher’s
telephone number, price range for the subscription resources, and a URL.
There is a descriptive annotation for each. Part 3 is an alphabetic list
of all the works in the "Classified Catalog" and in the
"List of Recommended Web Resources." Cross-references are made
in the index from variant forms of names, from terms not used as subject
headings to those that are and from terms used as subject headings to
related or more specific headings.
Considered an essential
professional tool, Senior High School Library Catalog can be used
to assist in the selection and ordering of resources, as an aid in
collection development and evaluation; in the identification of materials
appropriate for classroom use; and for assistance in verification of
bibliographic data, subject headings, or Dewey classification number.
Copyright dates of entries go through 2001; it would be helpful, however,
for there to be more entries of recent titles than are provided."
—American Reference Books Annual, 2003 |
