Why use Reference?

Reference resources such as encyclopedias (both general and specialized) are excellent sources of background information and also help point your research in a productive direction.

Reference resources will give you definitions, provide an overview of a topic and frequently include a bibliography of further readings which let you know what are the best books and articles on a subject. You can then look those books and articles up on Summon to see if we own them. If we don't you can use Interlibrary Loan if you want to obtain these materials from another library.

A good general encyclopedia (one covering all topics) is the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

Using Summon to Find e-Reference

Summon, our Web Scale Discovery software, allows you to easily find content in e-Reference books. It does not cover ALL our e-Reference books, but most are covered.

The box above allows you to search Summon for only reference material. You may want to add further filters, such as date and discipline (look at the left hand column). Remember that you will turn up both kinds of reference article, the short kind and the more detailed kind. Also in some cases you will not be directed to the specific article, but rather to the homepage of the reference book. Just search the topic you want (it will be on the sidebar to the right) and you will find the article.