Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues: Ecology & Ecosystems

April 1, 2012

These "Salem Singles" are excerpted from the 2011 hardcover set Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues (LJ 8/11); the related titles Atmosphere and Air Pollution, Policy and Activism, and Preservation and Wilderness are also available. While the original encyclopedia has 750 articles, these volumes contain 80 articles each. The text, references, and layout of the selections are exactly the same, but some of the photographs that accompanied the material in the larger set have been omitted. The brief description of the environmental significance of each topic carries over, too, and will be valuable to students. Excerpting the category index from the larger set does not work as well, however, as it creates anomalies such as leaving "Hoover Dam" as the single entry under "Preservation and Wilderness Issues" in Energy. VERDICT These titles will appeal to high school through graduate students and to general readers, some of whom may prefer small, topical, paperback volumes, and libraries will appreciate the shorter volumes' lower cost. The best contemporary feature of encyclopedias is the multiple access points provided by digitization; these titles are available as ebooks (which cost the same as the paperback titles) but lack the wider access to the Salem Science database that is free with purchase of the hardcover set. Libraries that subscribe to the Gale Virtual Reference Library of Encyclopedias, however, will find similar material in its Environmental Encyclopedia.--Janice Dunham, John Jay Coll. Lib., CUNY

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