World of Scientific Discovery [Review]


	
	
	




	Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship
	Winter 2000



	DOI:10.5062/F4N014HR







Book Reviews


World of Scientific Discovery



Sarah Kolda

Marian Koshland Bioscience and Natural Resources Library

University of California, Berkeley

skolda@library.berkeley.edu




World of Scientific Discovery. 2nd ed. Kimberly A. McGrath,
editor. Detroit, MI : Gale Research, 1999. 1186 p. hardcover $85.00 (ISBN
0-7876-2760-7)



Where do you send library users who are interested in investigating a
notable scientific discovery or scientist? World of Scientific Discovery
may be just the place to start, especially if they are interested in the
process of the discovery, rather than detailed technical explanations of
scientific concepts. Written at a high school reading level, this
reference text has over 1300 alphabetically arranged entries of notable
scientific discoveries and scientists, from absolute zero to zirconium,
and John Jacob Abel to Fritz Zwicky.

There are fourteen fields of focus: Agriculture, Astronomy, Biochemistry,
Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Sciences and Ecology, Geology,
Mathematics, Medicine/Health Sciences, Meteorology, Musical Instruments,
Oceanography, Pharmacology, and Physics. A few of the entries are devoted
to the most important scientific discoveries of prehistory and antiquity,
but the majority of the entries focus on discoveries of the 16th century
to the present day. Each biographical entry provides birth and death
dates, nationality, and field of expertise, as well as details about the
scientist's work, while most discovery entries encompass basic facts about
the discovery as well as its place in overall history and its social
impact. A couple of nice touches are the bold-faced terms within each
entry and the cross-reference terms at the end of each entry that lead the
user to other relevant discoveries or scientists. For example, the entry
for the American physicist Richard Feynman includes the bold-faced term
quantum electrodynamics, a sub-specialty field of particle physics (and a
discovery entry in the book). 


Although there are other reference texts strictly devoted to the
contributions of women and minorities in science which a librarian would
probably consult first, minorities and women are fairly well represented
in the text. The black and white illustrations in the book are mainly
portraits of the featured scientists. A subject index at the end lists
discovery and biographical entries by fields of focus, while a general
index directs the reader to all topics and persons mentioned in the book.
The "Sources Consulted" section at the end of the text is not
comprehensive, but does list the major sources used in the compilation of
the text. 


Overall, I would recommend this text for use in any general reference
collection. The well-written and well-edited entries are easy to
understand and would answer many library users basic questions about a
notable scientist or discovery. 









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