Searching for Encyclopedias

In addition to the general encylopedias in the Reference Reading Room, the Libraries own a great many subject encylopedias: some multi-volume sets covering an entire subject (New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians), others more narrowly-focused one-volume works (Encylopedia of Bioethics, Encylopedia of New York) Many have important scholars as contributors and are a good place to go for an overview of a topic or to put a question in context.

There are also other general encyclopedias besides those in the Reading Room. In particular, some foreign language encyclopedias may be found in the stacks and not in the Reading Room.

To search for a subject encyclopedia, use a keyword search with the name of the subject you are looking for and the following terms, exactly as follows:

k=psychology and (encyclopedias.su. or dictionaries.su.)

To find an encyclopedia in another language, use the name of the language in place of the subject:

k=chinese and (encyclopedias.su. or dictionaries.su.)

IUCAT does not contain information on many items published before 1977. To find out about encyclopedias published before then, try IUCAT but also look under "Encyclopedias" in the subject section of the card catalog.