They summarize and synthesize information from a variety of sources and include a selective bibliography of authoritative books and articles on the subject. They will answer many of your basic questions about your topic and guide you to further information. Here is the Selected List of Subject Encyclopedias in the HSU Library to give you an idea of what is available. Change all of these to any of these . Click the Search button.
Books cover a subject in depth and detail.
There may be only one viewpoint, or there may be several, as in a compilation of essays or conference papers. Books offer the broadest scope for discussing a subject. They also take a relatively long time to write and produce. So, although they bring together large amounts of material, they are not necessarily the most current information on a subject. This is more of a problem for some topics than others.