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.
In addition to the general encyclopedias, reference collects authoritative encyclopedias in specialized subject areas. The reference collection provides a limited collection of selected atlases. Most geographical sources are housed in the Map Room. Reference attempts to collect current and authoritative handbooks in all major subject fields. Indexes and Abstracts.