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Reference lists at the ends of articles or books are incredibly useful places to find sources of information on a given subject. If you find one useful source, chances are that the works they cite in their reference list may be helpful to you.
Sometimes there are entire books or parts of books dedicated to listing sources on a particular subject or author. These are usually referred to as bibiliographies. (note that the same word is often used as a synonym for reference list) Bibliogrpaphies may be found in the library's reference section or in the regular, circulating, collection. You can search for them in the CONSORT catalog by doing a WORDS search that includes your topic and the word "bibliography." For example, typing "herbs and bibliograph*" in the WORDS option of the OhioLINK catalog would bring up a list of bibliographies about herbs and books about herbs that contain bibliographies.
Reference lists and bibiographies can be like GOLD MINES in research, because you can save tremendous time and effort in trying to come up with appropriate sources. Someone else has already gone to the work to collect relevant citations which you then can easily find. However, there are limitations to using bibliographies. In what ways do you think they might be problemmatic?
| Some bibliographies, like this one, list citations only. |  |
| Annotated bibliographies include a descriptive summary of each work to help you decide whether or not it might be useful to you. |  |
| Critical bibliographies offer criticism of listed works in addition to annotations. |  |
Bibliographies, like most information sources, may contain errors or outdated information. Also, some bibliographies are selective in nature, so the sources listed may not be the best available for your topic. Non-annotated bibliographies give no information about the content of the sources listed, so you may still have to spend considerable time reviewing sources to see if they will be relevant to your research.
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