Maintain knowledge and expertise in the Reference staff. Set procedures for acquiring new materials and for weeding the collection to ensure the development and maintenance of a complete, current, and convenient reference collection. The Reference Department collects current editions of major publications for the United States and selected foreign countries. Normally, bibliographies with narrow subject scope, such as single-author bibliographies, are kept in the general collection. Usually, the more general bibliographies on broad topics and of a continuing nature are included in the reference collection.
Reference also collects guides to the literature for appropriate special areas.
The Reference department collects comprehensive works dealing with professional, national, and international biography, including both retrospectives and current biography. The Reference Department provides unilingual, bilingual, and polyglot dictionaries in major languages. Bilingual dictionaries are provided for as many languages as possible. The reference collection includes a current edition of major directories in selected subject fields. Reference has several major foreign language encyclopedias.