When Marlene Samuels found a publisher for her deceased mother’s World War II memoir, The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival, her editor at Penguin-Berkeley had two conditions. She would have to ensure the accuracy of all the book’s facts (the names of every town and city in Eastern Europe during the early 1900’s up to the end of World War II among them) and enrich the chapters with accurate details about the time period and various settings.

She began her task by applying the research methodology she’d learned while working toward her PhD at the University of Chicago. Ultimately, she prepared a guide for writers on doing research offline that includes reliable reference books because:

public, free online encyclopedias vary widely both in their degrees of accuracy and in their reliability levels. In fact, even within the exact same online encyclopedias, accuracy of the individual posts varies…dependent upon the diligence and capabilities of individual researchers and contributors.

I am happy to be able to share excerpts from Marlene’s book that name library resources particularly useful to creative nonfiction and memoir writers.

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Excerpts from When Digital isn’t Real: Fact Finding Offline for Serious Writers
by Marlene B. Samuels  [Published here with permission of the author]

General References & Research Sources

We’ve all used general, readily available reference books, the kind we find at most libraries. Many of these sources are long time standards, for example encyclopedias, dictionaries, and atlases But a wide range of these, while available, aren’t particularly well known but offer excellent information. My list includes those upon which I depend for highly reliable information and details.

American Reference Books Annual, 2010. Vol.41. Shannon Graff Hysell, Associate Editor. 2010. Libraries Unlimited.
This is a reference book for reference books! The most recently published edition lists high-quality materials accompanied by critical reviews. More than 1,500 reviews of not only print resources and online references have been written by more than 400 academic, public, and school librarians. All the contributors are regarded as experts in their fields. About 500 subjects are covered in disciplines including social sciences, humanities, science and technology.

Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature, (17th edition). Bartlett, John, and Justin Kaplan, Editor. 2002. Little Brown and Co., Boston, MA.

Started in 1855 and continuously updated, Bartlett’s is a “must-have,” very reliable collection of phrases, passages, and proverbs that lists original sources. In addition, all citations are cross-referenced by topic and source.

The Address Book: How To Reach Anyone Who Is Anyone, (8th edition). Levine, Michael. 1997. Berkley Group, New York, NY.

Yes — this, too, is dated by current standards but it does contain excellent suggestions that continue to be reliable, helpful and accurate. It’s self-explanatory although due to tremendous changes in the internet, a new version would undeniably be a big help!

The Oxford Guide to Library Research,?Mann, Thomas. 2005. Oxford University Press, New York.
This is one of my favorite guides of all time! It’s becoming increasingly difficult, not impossible, to be a respectable writer without also being a pro client (okay, a really good) researcher. Now, due to the incredible quantity of available information combined with complexity of retrieval, any writer conducting research will benefit from acquiring a clear, comprehensive understanding of his or her information retrieval options.

The third edition of The Oxford Guide to Library Research includes both print and online approaches but one of the wonderful qualities of this guide is Mann’s inclusion of very specific search techniques that can be applied to almost any research held.

Mann definitely is a man after my own heart! (Pun?) He elaborates about the reasons our opportunities and abilities to browse library shelves remain critically important even in the present-day on-line, computer age. The author also shows us the timeless importance of physical libraries, books, and traditional research methods. And yet, he doesn’t fail to include helpful advice about online research.

I really do appreciate that Dr. Mann includes examples from his own experiences conducting research plus from his work assisting others in their research on a range of topics. If I were to decide to purchase only one general research guide, The Oxford Guide to Library Research ranks at the top of my list.

Sociology – A Guide To Reference and Information Sources, (3rd edition). Aby, Stephen H. 2005. Libraries Unlimited, Englewood, CO. Another “reference to references,” this text summarizes 610 primary sociology reference sources in addition to those in the related social sciences. The emphasis is upon works published in the United States, Great Britain, Canada and Australia from 1997 through early 2004.

The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge: Completely Revised and Expanded, 2nd Edition. (Multiple editors and contributors). 2007. St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY.

Organized by broad categories, this guide includes arts, economics, business and finance, science and technology, sports, nations and even origins of the world’s languages. Categories are subdivided further, for example, art is comprised of film, visual arts, music and the performing arts. It’s a very handy reference source for quick fact-checking or information.

The Sourcebook to Public Record Information: The Comprehensive Guide to County, State and Federal Public Records Sources. Weber, Peter J., and Michael Sankey, Editors. 2008. BRB Publications, Portland, OR. Any writer needing the information contained in public records will find this guide incredibly valuable. The real attraction: any writer who has attempted to conduct research that requires access to public record information knows how totally “crazy-making” the process can be. The Sourcebook to Public Record Information begins with an instructional approach, explaining exactly how to find and use public records. Included are federal records that “live” in physical settings plus those newly available online. This sourcebook is especially helpful for anyone interested in using these types of records for legal research, background investigations, screenings, locating people or assets, or in order to gather genealogy data.

Organized by state, every chapter contains helpful telephone numbers — a feature I find incredibly useful — plus contact information lists with very specific requirements to meet in order to gain access at a variety of levels. Included: state agencies, state licensing boards, federal courts, county or regional courts, and recording bureaus.

The new edition has 96 additional pages containing updated telephone numbers and internet accessible sites, state maps and even some limited information about Canadian records. The only difficulty I see with this reference is that it’s missing an index, something I find really strange. Other than that one glitch, it’s an excellent source book.

Geography and Places

Encyclopedia of Urban America – The Cities and Suburbs, (2 Volumes). Neil Larry Shumsky, Editor. 1998. ABC-CLIO Publishing, Oxford, England. Encyclopedia of Urban America contains more than 500 entries with details about numerous important topics; major cities, suburbs, people, places, concepts, contemporary issues, history and development of urban America. The discussion encompasses problems associated with both urban and suburban areas. These include diverse issues such as crime, pollution, congestion, to the arts and humanities, social issues, religion, infrastructure, noteworthy individuals, and economics.

The encyclopedia also offers plenty of illustrations plus cross-references to all information and numerous bibliographies. The index is nicely organized as well, making this an easy book to use. The greatest drawback is that, like so many other references of this type, information tends to be very outdated. Any writer depending on this resource would be wise to double-check more currently available demographic records.

Almanac of the 50 States 2010: Comparative Data Profiles & Guide to Government Data. Corporate Authors. 2010. Information Publications. Almanac of the 50 States is the comprehensive clearinghouse for extensive data about all the 50 states plus the District of Columbia making it an incredibly helpful reference source. This reference source has been referred to as the essential research tool for anyone conducting research or seeking specific facts about the United States.

My own experience with it has been positive, confirming that it’s both highly usable, in large part because it’s very well-organized. As a result, it’s also helpful to researchers at almost any level. Even though it is compact, it contains plenty of information about every state for anyone needing demographic information, analysis and research. I find it especially helpful for quick facts about very specific matters such as state bird, major industry, crime rates, population, mean incomes, and even political participation.

Don’t Know Much About Geography: Everything You Needed to Know About the World But Never Learned David, Kenneth C. 2004. Perennial-Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY. My comments: exactly the same as for Mr. David’s book entitled, Don’t Know Much About History. Simply substitute “geography” with the word “history” and you’ve got it! That, however, does not make it any less valuable as a reference tool.

The 50 States of the United States Capital and Information Links: Information, mostly factual with few comments, about geographic locations, state birds, colleges and universities, constitutions, indigenous owners, genealogical resources, geological formations, geographical features, mottos, national forests and parks, newspapers, nicknames, nonprofit organizations, populations, state and federal representatives, songs, and the dates of entry into the union. Very basic and updated regularly.

The World Factbook 2013-14 The Central Intelligence Agency, 2013. Publisher: The Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC: Incredibly comprehensive, this reference contains facts and statistics about more than 250 countries plus other entities collected and produced by the US Central Intelligence Agency. The fact that it’s updated annually makes it a real standout; so many fact books and references are updated too infrequently to make them indispensable.

Regional Landscapes of the United States and Canada, Stephen S. Birdsall. 1992. John Wiley Press, New York, NY: There’s not much to say about this reference but it’s fun to look at and can offer some additional detail to any writers needing to add information about geography in their writing.

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Thank you, Marlene, for sharing your enthusiasm for these sources. I am sure most are new ones to Writing It Real members as they are to me. Finding and using them will help all of us pin down the specifics that will help us make our writing into fine reading.