The Oxford Guide to Library Research

by Thomas Mann

With all of the new developments in information storage and retrieval, researchers today need a clear and comprehensive overview of the full range of their options, both online and offline, for finding the best information quickly. In this third edition of The Oxford Guide to Library Research, Thomas Mann maps out an array not just of important databases and print sources, but of several specific search techniques that can be applied profitably in any area of research. From academic resources to government documents to manuscripts in archives to business Web sites, Mann shows readers how best to exploit controlled subject headings, explains why browsing library shelves is still important in an online age, demonstrates how citation searching and related record searching produce results far beyond keyword inquiries, and offers practical tips on making personal contacts with knowledgeable people. Against the trendy but mistaken assumption that "everything" can be found on the Internet, Mann shows the lasting value of physical libraries and the unexpected power of traditional search mechanisms, while also providing the best overview of the new capabilities of computer indexing.
Throughout the book Mann enlivens his advice with real-world examples derived from his experience of having helped thousands of researchers, with interests in all subjects areas, over a quarter century. Along the way he provides striking demonstrations and powerful arguments against those theorists who have mistakenly announced the demise of print.
Essential reading for students, scholars, professional researchers, and laypersons, The Oxford Guide to Library Research offers a rich, inclusive overview of the information field, one that can save researchers countless hours of frustration in the search for the best sources on their topics.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, Research, Library Science, Writing, Textbooks, School

320 pages, Paperback

First published October 8, 1987

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing. Not the edge of your seat kind of amazing, but the kind of 'oh my fucking god this is so cool' kind of dorky amazing. In just under three hundred pages there is so much information that it's almost staggering, and the author can handle this plethora of researching advice in a very easy to read and accessible manner. That he's something of a crummugedon (oh, why won't my spell checker know what word I'm trying to spell here, and oh why am i so lazy to go look up how to spell it myself) when it comes to computers is quite amusing. He doesn't miss a chance to take a swipe at Google, and after awhile you might even start to think that there is nothing to be found of any worth just through using Google. This can get a little bit much at times, but it's also a reminder to go deeper than Google when looking for information or doing research, and that while Google might have lots of information there is still so much that isn't there and which is in danger of being buried even farther from societies collective awareness because it's not searchable by the big G. If you're any kind of information dork it's difficult to go more than a couple of pages without feeling like your going to wet yourself over some database, or encyclopedia or website that Mann describes. So good, and at just $18.95 it puts to shame my other textbook that is supposed to be teaching future librarians on how to find information well to total shame. (I'd say that my other textbook at more than three times the cost is probably less than a third as comprehensive as this one.)

I only wish I had known about this book, or had been exposed to even a fraction of the stuff in here when I had been an undergrad or during grad school part one, instead of just finding out about it now when I'm supposed to be learning how to help other people find all of this cool nerdy shit instead of going and working with it myself.

[Karla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fancied myself information literate, and then I read this book. The author is a reference librarian at the Library of Congress, and he knows an unbelievable amount of ways to find information. This book would be useful to most any graduate student. In particular, I think it would also be helpful for research involving older documents which aren't indexed in online databases. I also learned a thing or two about government documents. Highly recommended for library students!

[Joshua Loong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mann here articulates a sense that I’ve felt for a while: contrary to popular belief, the boundaries of knowledge are so much larger than what exists online. Particularly in an age of ChatGPT, where LLM models are trained exclusively on digitized content, it seems weird to think there is a ton of knowledge and information that exists completely outside of the open internet.

But there is, mountains and mountains of print books have never been digitized. Many maps, documents, government publications, manuscripts and artifacts have not either. Many academic papers, newspaper and magazine articles are either locked behind subscription paywalls or have also never been digitized in the first place.

All of this non-online content, plus closed online academic sources (journals, databases etc.), are immensely helpful for research purposes. But are not immediately obviously when you hit the first page of Google search, or ask an LLM to give you a summary of a field.

But they are housed and available in libraries. Mann in this book shows how to navigate these storehouses of knowledge. Opening you to various methods to help you as a researcher answer particular types of questions, find sources, and understand the lay of the land in any field.

There’s a lot of really good stuff in here, plus endless lists of recommended sources for different niche fields. I’m obviously not a formal researcher, but I do have a few hobby projects that I’ve been working on that require some level of research. I used some of the stuff in here recently and was blown away at how much more efficient it was than doing simple Google keyword searches.

However, beyond the practical guidance here, I think Mann does a great deal of defending the need for libraries to exist. The role they have, and should have, in doing informed research that could not be done in a exclusively online world.

It also made me think about the limitations of current approaches to LLMs and generalized AI that is all the rage these days. The contours of any trained intelligence will necessarily be what content it is provided, and the largest boundary is going to be digitized content that is available. It means the limits of any AI system is bound to the narratives, content, and information that can be found online.

But sometimes the information online is misguided or even downright incorrect. I’ve seen this in niche history articles I help edit on Wikipedia myself. Compounded by the fact that most people will trust what they see online and then post about it, even if its incorrect, creating a content feedback loop. All creating conditions that exacerbate misguided by knowledge by being fed back into any LLM. Trusting LLM systems in deep academic topics with this context is difficult.

To be clear, this isn’t some anti-AI rant. I mean, I work in the field, and I think there are many wonderful use cases of it. But to expect generalized AI to be all encompassing in its knowledge of the world is misguided. Many technologists fundamentally misunderstand how much is out there that isn’t online. It just shows how much we still need real humans to be able to navigate information correctly. And it shows how much we still need real libraries in an increasingly digital world.

[Kyle Potter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mann's book rewards a careful reader with an exposition of how the organization of libraries and databases serve the needs of the researcher - nothing in a library's organization is arbitrary, and this volume carefully explains how to best use that organization for deep research. He teaches useful, high-level techniques with interesting and memorable examples. This can be useful for an undergraduate research course, but it's entirely indispensable for serious academic work. Anyone starting a graduate or doctoral program should read this, as well as anyone looking for more "tips and tricks."

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a textbook for school, so I’m finished for now, but I plan to keep it as a research reference. I haven’t read every chapter, but I’ve read enough to want to own it, because the content is really good, and it’s not a snooze to read.
For class, we were downloading individual chapters, but I really wanted the whole book and discovered it in ebook form for $9.99 on Amazon. I was surprised at such a low price for a school textbook and snapped it up.
There are a lot of good tips for searching effectively online, in OPACs, databases and web search. I can never remember the tricker Boolean stuff, and this book covers it in detail.
This is a great resource I’m planning to put to use in future classes.

[Katie Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is what it is, and for what it is, it’s surprisingly readable. I wouldn’t recommend it as pleasure reading, but it did build a strong case for library research over research on the open internet, and it also got my excited about the level of specificity that is possible in doing scholarly research.

[Myron Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do believe that this is a must read book for librarians, particularly those who work in academic libraries. With that said there are some caveats to this recommendation. Remember when your instructors conducted how to research classes they told you to "watch out for bias" in your information sources? Well this book wears its bias on its sleeve. Thomas Mann is no fan of the open internet as a reference research source. This book could have easily been half its length without the extended rants and asides about the open internet. The open internet does have its weakness as a research tool but it also have some strengths, especially when you don't access to the vast resources of the Library of Congress - where Mr. Mann works - at your disposal, which most librarians don't. Yes knowledge of controlled vocabularies is a useful tool but it is not everything. The last edition of this book was written in 2005 and Google has added several features since then that has actually increased its value as an academic research tool. You wouldn't know it by reading this book because while parts of this book does have updated language, other parts of this book, particularly the rants about the open internet, does not reflect some of the changes that took place in the decade between editions. The basis of some of his rants were valid in 2005 but less so when this edition was published in 2015. Despite this criticism I do recommend this book. Mann does provide some really useful techniques that will make you a better library researcher. Most importantly he encourages the mindset of focusing on the particular before going broader when conducting research on particular topics. He does encourage people to take full advantage of the tools at their disposal when conducting research. This is a useful book but it could be a hard read for some because of its bias against the open internet.

[Kaelie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Valuable, but dry and the author is an internet phobe. I want to tell him that Google is okay, as long as you're careful. Ugh.

[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good for listing of resources you wouldn't normally think of, but you have to get past Mann's demeaning tone...

[Randy Hulshizer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This guy HATES the internet

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very comprehensive book that seeks to make readers aware of the vast resources available to them beyond the internet. While the author discuss the internet (and its advantages and disadvantages), his main focus is encouraging and equipping the reader to use the library (and various libraries at that). He writes near the end of the book, "Perhaps the most important point overall, however, is the observation with which this book began: if you want to do serious research, it is highly advisable not to confine your searches to the open Internet alone. The information universe of the future, no matter how its contents may change and grow, is best understood in terms of unavoidable trade-offs amount what, who, and where restrictions...Within the world of learning, however, history has also witnessed the creation of a marvelous mechanism for protecting the rights of authors while also making the universe of knowledge freely available to anyone who will travel to certain locations."

I was assigned this book for a Research and Writing class. Students were given permission to skim it (as opposed to reading carefully) for which I was grateful. It's pretty overwhelming to sit down and try to read and retain everything in this book, even though the author has a very easy to follow and conversational style of writing. He includes lots of examples and very thorough descriptions of the different sources and methods for using those sources. It's very unlikely that anyone could read this book and remember all the ins and outs of library resources, but it does a great job of making the reader aware of what is available and giving tools and tips to reference when you need them. I had NO idea that all of these resources were available and even a cursory reading of this book will aid anyone in their understanding of how to look for information in places they didn't know existed. I also appreciated the author's emphasis that librarians are there to help and that you shouldn't try to research on our own because you will almost definitely miss things of which you were not aware.

Perhaps a bonus to this practical material is the author's philosophical discussion of the hierarchy of knowledge which I found pretty interesting. He talks about it a little in the preface and then in an appendix ("Wisdom and Information Science"). He makes the case for wisdom having a moral, values-based quality and that the way we organize and pursue information falls into that framework. It's a brief part of the book, but I thought it was a helpful reminder/caveat. The second appendix, "Scholarship vs. Quick Information Seeking" provides a list of practices for which to strive as a good scholar, almost like a code of conduct. The author's desire for the reader to make full use of the information, knowledge and wisdom available reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."
Alexander Pope

Despite the typos and somewhat overwhelming feel of this book, I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to learn and have new opportunities of information introduced and explained to them.

[Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick impressions: For librarians in the field, like me, parts of this book may serve as a skills refresher. I did read it all to write this review, but for my brethren in the field I recommend you read what you need when you need.

The book may not be too accessible for undergraduates. It does offer good research tips, but undergrads may need to dig through the more dense material first to find the good tips they can use. The book may be more geared to graduate students, research faculty, and especially librarians in training. Thus I would recommend the book for academic libraries, especially R-1 and similar institutions. For small academic libraries, I'd say this is optional.

(Full review on my blog later.)

[Christine Slaughter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fabulous, fascinating book about methods of finding information (I know, it sounds weird to describe such a book as 'fascinating,' but it really is, especially if you're interested in the conceptual underpinnings of this stuff). I'm a Ph.D. student who is moving into the library profession, reading this for self-education, and I only wish I'd known about this book during my earlier experiences as a researcher! I can't wait to use the strategies suggested in this book in my own instruction sessions.

[Nicholas Abraham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful information for research. More of a reference book than something one would read through.

[Mary Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Excerpts) Used in MLIS course on information organization and search. Particularly useful for academic libraries. I appreciated the author's perspective as a Library of Congress librarian.

[Kacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful information but very repetitive.

[Yisu Z. · Rating 5 out of 5]

非常棒。准备下学期推荐给学生们读。讲了很多基础的东西。现在唯一缺的就是一个好的找书的引擎（cited reference）。同时也让人意识到好图书馆是多么的重要。

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

The useful tips in this book are buried beneath hundreds of pages of sneering contempt for the Internet and anyone who uses it to look up information.

[Zach Hedges · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could there be a more qualified authority to write a guide to library research than a man who has three decades of experience working in the reference department of the largest library in the world (Washington’s Library of Congress)? Thomas Mann brings a uniquely masterful level of expertise to a subject which (as he demonstrates) sorely requires it in the age of Google and Wikipedia.

The fourth edition of Mann’s Guide is fully up to date and exceedingly prepared to tackle (and employ) the most recent technological developments that affect the research process. Far from the stereotypical stuffy librarian, Mann exhibits a particular affinity for all things digital, but it is his impassioned defense of the indispensability of “bricks-and-mortar” research libraries as a catalyst for those technologies that make this work so enlightening. In short, Mann’s ambition is to engender appreciation for what he calls the “trade-offs” of information dissemination and retrieval, and to demonstrate how even the most rudimentary grasp of them can drastically improve the efficiency and quality of the final research product.

After a preface which sets forth the “hierarchy of learning” and introduces the “trade-offs” that are so crucial to his argument for the necessity of the research library, Mann begins his overview of eight complementary “methods” for conducting research, along with various other tools and tips to be employed along the way. The recurring theme is the complementarity of these approaches, each of which features inherent strengths and weaknesses, in the pursuit of a full-orbed sense of the “shape of the elephant” (the research topic as a whole). This theme reads as something of a diatribe against the prevailing modern tendency toward simple keyword searching in “universal” catalogs, which severely limits and even impedes the process.

Mann’s arsenal of strategies includes, in brief: consultation of specialized encyclopedias; liberal use of “controlled vocabularies,” or subject headings (primarily as established by the Library of Congress); general and focused browsing of classified bookstacks; navigation of journal databases through the use of “descriptors” (subject headings); the necessary evil of occasional keyword searching (but with emphasis on its disadvantages and insistence on the use of tools such as Boolean operators); citation searches; progression through “related records” (sources with common footnotes); and examination of overview resources such as literature reviews and published subject bibliographies.

In addition, Mann points to less conventional methods such as interlibrary loans, personal interviews, and special collections (microforms, archives, etc.) which exist with insufficient attention beyond the library walls. The last two chapters survey, largely in review, types of reference literature, familiarity with which can greatly expedite research.

Of course, Mann’s Guide itself constitutes a formidable resource which, in addition to sustaining an impenetrable argument for research beyond keywords, provides an astonishing sampling of the very best examples of the many alternatives. If its specificity makes for tedious (and often redundant) reading, the book thoroughly compensates through its sheer “reference-ability”—this is an invaluable introduction that will certainly ensure, through regular consultation, that the novice researcher avoids a plethora of pitfalls and takes advantage instead of a host of resources previously unimagined.

[Kassandra · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am reading this book as it is, surprisingly, a requirement for a graduate course in librarianship and I am very much disliking something about the author's underlying tone. He seems angry or frustrated and the book reads as if he is trying to argue with the reader. It's as if he is writing a paper to convince you to believe what he believes rather than to educate the reader. One example so far is that he seems to be very closed to change and seems to think if books were to be entirely digitized it would be a "terrible substitute" for libraries. I just sense a lot of fear, frustration and anger in the undertones from this author. It's a very unpleasant read when you feel as if though the author is yelling at you, or trying to argue with you.

[Diana]

Thomas Mann has been a reference librarian in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress for 25 years and uses both print and electronic sources to find information. His tips on using ordinary sources are an indispensable friend for students, or anyone with a hobby, a project you are working on or if you just wants to find, perhaps, more detailed information. The book is very readable, not at all dry or technical. You do not have to be a professional researcher or studnet to get useful tools from this book. Students who read the book can have their research projects for school improved dramatically.

[Wens Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview from a librarian who clearly knows his collection and his users, and would use the best combination of strategies to get the information needed, even when that information resides outside the library.

His basic premise (which I agree strongly with): that every strategy has its trade-offs; to be a good researcher, you need to know what these trade-offs are and use a suitable combination of strategies, in a suitable order, to find the information needed.

[Joe Matson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps the only readable book on how to get the most out of libraries, Mann repeatedly stresses the strengths and weaknesses of several search strategy, and he gives clear examples to illustrate (especially) why certain things are not online, and probably never will be. The Appendix on Wisdom is a surprising departure from the rest of the book, arguing that knowledge is not enough: we also have to be moral to be wise.

[Kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Half guidebook and half theory, this text can be incredibly helpful to serious researchers, reference librarians and MILS/MLS students. The rest of the world can probably do without the lists of resources and nuts-and-bolts approach to research. There's other books that are shorter and better designed to educate the layperson on the value of information searching.

The appendix on wisdom however is probably only worthwhile to philosophy students, not 90% of the targeted audience for this book.

[Laura Buller · Rating 4 out of 5]

The language itself was somewhat more complex than I thought necessary for a 'teaching text.' However, the many options for researching and finding the best information quickly is excellent. The databases presented along with search techniques is indeed helpful. I found particularly beneficial the fact that Mann demonstrates how citation and record searching yield far better results than keyword inquiries alone.

[Pamela Hubbard · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is pretty dry but gives an incredible overview of different aspects of research, such as citation searching, different types of resources, etc. Much of the material is "skimmable" and I'm not sure how long the material in the book will stay current, but it is a solid foundational book for librarians or students learning about research.

[Tensy (bookdoyen) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very detailed summary of how to do research in an academic library. Due to the amount and depth of detail this is definitely geared to graduate student populations. Mann, a reference librarian at the Library of Congress for over 30 years, explains the strength of subject heading searches in the library catalog, as well as Boolean keyword searching in databases.

[Bonnie Brzozowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is pretty amazing. I think even a super-savvy reference librarian could pick up some great tips. It is getting a bit dated in terms of database names and providers and search features, etc.

[Ariel Dagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many folks this that today search engine are the be all and end all of all answers. Mann puts things into perspective and enables the reader to have a greater understanding how one should access information based on their search needs.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Mann has a dry wit that cleverly peppers this book and keeps it interesting. This is an extremely useful tool for those about to embark on large research projects that entail utilizing as many library resources as possible. Comprehensive.