ABSTRACT
W E LIVE IN A GOLDEN age of reference books, and yet many scholars disdain them. Never before have so many first-rate reference books appeared as in the last five to ten years, and yet few readers take pride in this achievement. Reference works proliferate, yet no scholar boasts of having digested the best of them. Like icebergs, reference books float nine-tenths submerged, glanced at but largely unused.
