Reference books provide background information on a topic, such as definitions of terms, key figures and events, and well written overviews. They can be a useful starting point for any research project, because they fill in missing knowledge about the topic or provide you with the language of the discipline.
Reference books provide background information on a topic, such as definitions of terms, key figures and events, and well written overviews. They can be a useful starting point for any research project, because they fill in missing knowledge about the topic or provide you with the language of the discipline. UFV Library has many reference titles both in print and online to get you started.
"The Oxford English Dictionary is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. "
Selected books from our electronic reference collection:
The Civil War era and Reconstruction : an encyclopedia of social, political, cultural, and economic history
The Eighties in America
Encyclopedia of Politics: the left and the right
Encyclopedia of Politics of the American West
Encyclopedia of U. S. Campaigns, Elections, and Electoral Behavior
Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction
The Nineties in America