| American Reference Books Annual (ARBA) is well established as a comprehensive source for reviews of all types of reference books published or distributed in the United States and Canada. The twenty annual volumes of ARBA, which began in 1970, contain 34,108 reviews of reference books. These titles include books on almost any topic in a variety of reference formatsalmanacs, bibliographies, catalogs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks, and indexes, among others. |
| Access to each annual volume is provided through that volume's indexes of author, title, and subject. Offering comprehensive access to authors, titles, and subjects, the cumulative index brings together five years of ARBA. Joseph Sprug prepared the first five-year volume, Index to American Reference Books Annual 1970-1974; Christine Gehrt-Wynar prepared the second, Index to American Reference Books Annual 1975-1979, and Ruth Blackmore prepared Index to American Reference Books Annual 1980-1984. Although all the index volumes have contained author, title, and subject indexes, some variations in style and organization showing the unique hand of each volume's individual compiler exist among the volumes. |
| This fourth five-year cumulation, Index to American Reference Books Annual 1985-1989, provides author, title, and subject access to all reviews in ARBA from 1985 to 1989. The cumulative index merges five years of information on published reference materials that have appeared in ARBA. Each entry in ARBA presents full bibliographic information, an evaluative review, and citations to professional journals containing other published reviews. The index is more than a location device; it is also a critical tool for the scholar, librarian, and reader seeking to tap ARBA's wealth of information. |
| This volume of the cumulative index covers 8,759 books reviewed during the 1985-1989 period. The author/title index provides access through author entries (e.g., Baxter, Pam M., 85n673; Reed, Jeffrey G., 85n673) and through a title entry (e.g., Library use, 85n673). In order to offer a reasonable-sized book, short titles and abbreviated words within titles are used. |
| The author/title index is arranged alphabetically word by word (when a word is abbreviated, it is filed as if it were spelled out). Multiple volumes of the same title are arranged numerically. Books with the same title published in different years are arranged chronologically. Acronyms are filed alphabetically as they appear. Numerals appear as if they were spelled out. |
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