| American Reference Books Annual (ARBA) is well established as a comprehensive source of reviews for all types of reference books published or distributed in the United States and Canada. The 25 annual volumes of ARBA, which began in 1970, contain more than 43,400 reviews of reference books. These titles include books on almost any topic in a variety of reference formats (e.g., almanacs, bibliographies, catalogs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks, indexes). |
| Access to each annual volume is provided through that volume's indexes of authors, titles, and subjects. 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 19701974; Christine Gehrt-Wynar, Index to American Reference Books Annual 19751979; Ruth Blackmore, Index to American Reference Books Annual 19801984; and Anna Grace Patterson, Index to American Reference Books Annual 19851989. 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 five-year cumulation, Index to American Reference Books Annual 19901994, provides author, title, and subject access to all reviews in ARBA from 1990 to 1994. 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 9,284 books reviewed during the 19901994 period. The author/title index provides access through author entries (e.g., Hunt, Gladys, 94n383) and through a title entry (e.g., Read for your life, 94n383). 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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