Fundamentals of Reference

Directories 39

published for several decades. It supplies contact information for numerous
government agencies and congressional committees, as well as private and
nonprofit organizations located in each district. Entries are arranged by broad
subject area, and there are indexes by name as well as keyword/subject. An
online version is also available as part of the CQ Press Political Contact Suite.
Go to the CQ Press website at http://www.cqpress.com for further information.
Hoover’s Business Press publishes a number of useful directories both in
print and online. Hoover’s Master
List of U.S. Companies is a compre-
hensive annual publication provid-
ing information on some 10,000
companies in America. Public and
private companies are listed, as are
their subsidiaries and a number of
associations, nonprofit organiza-
tions, government agencies, and
foundations. Entries supply contact
and basic information, stock sym-
bols, and names of key executives.
There are indexes searchable by
stock symbol, industry, and head-
quarters location. Other Hoover
titles are Hoover’s Handbook of World
Business, Hoover’s Handbook of Pri-
vate Companies, Hoover’s Handbook
of American Business, and Hoover’s Handbook of Emerging Companies. Hoover’s
Online (www.hoovers.com) provides information from all the print directories
and many other features.

notes

1. Michael Levine-Clark and Toni M. Carter, eds., ALA Glossary of Library and
   Information Science, 4th ed. (Chicago: American Library Association, 2012),
   s.v. “directory.”


2. Joseph E. Straw, “Directories,” in Reference and Information Services: An
   Introduction, 4th ed., ed. Richard E. Bopp and Linda C. Smith (Santa Barbara,
   CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2011), 413.

Books and more

Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com.

Although it seems as if you can buy

almost anything at Amazon.com, it

remains a helpful site for the quick

identification of books and their

availability.

Alibris, http://www.alibris.com. This is an

excellent source for older and out-

of-print titles, be they books, music,

or movies. Many libraries rely on it

for filling in gaps in the collection.

WorldCat (www.worldcat.org) is an

OCLC product that unlocks the

riches of library catalogs worldwide.