A Guide to Field Guides: Identifying the Natural History of North America

by Diane Schmidt

Overview

Field guides are often difficult to identify, since there is no specific subject heading for them and titles can be unreliable indicators of format. Yet these popular scientific tools (designed to assist amateurs in identifying plants, animals, and objects) are also widely used by scientists, naturalists, foresters, wildlife managers, and other professionals and most libraries contain numerous field guides in their collections. Focusing on the North American continent, this book, the first of its kind, identifies and describes major field guides in all scientific subject areas (from plants, animals, and insects to astronomy and weather, geology and fossils, and man-made objects). Organized by topic, it offers complete bibliographic information and descriptions of more than 1,300 field guides. This permits users to quickly and easily discover whether a guide is available for a particular subject and determine its scope and format. Invaluable as a ready reference and collection development tool, this

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781563087073
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/15/1999
Series:	Reference Sources in Science and Technology
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

DIANE SCHMIDT is Biology Librarian and Associate Professor of Library Administration, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Editorial Reviews

A guide which identifies and describes a wide range of field guides on natural history topics including plants, animals, mushrooms, marine invertebrates, insects, astronomy, fishes, and geology and fossils. The final chapter lists field guides on man-made objects such as stone artefacts, windmills, hot sauces, old barns, sailboats, and gargoyles. The field guides are mostly organized by topic, then by region. Annotations are concise descriptions with virtually no evaluative commentary. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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