EVALUATION OF READY REFERENCE SOURCES

There is a tremendous increase in the importance and use of the ready reference sources due to availability of variety of information. They serve as important reference sources for all sorts of people - from students to research scholars and professors, general readers to business executives involved with facts and trivia, housewives to retired persons who are interested in utilizing their spare time and
getting satisfaction of doing some useful activities. In order to satisfy the users' demands, enormous varieties of ready reference sources are brought out by publishers all over the world. They are abundant in number and kinds. No library can afford to procure many of them due to limited funds available for the acquisition of reference tools. Many of them are regular annuals or biennials and so, recurring expenditure is included. Many libraries place standing orders for some well-known serial publications to get them soon after they are released and without any gap in the file. A reference librarian is tempted to buy number of such sources when the announcement leaflets are received but one has to be choosy in selecting the sources considering the type of the library, requirements of the users and kinds of queries usually received in the library. Needs of the university libraries differ from those of the pubic libraries. Special libraries of social science institutions need different types of sources than those of science and technology libraries. Thus, it is essential to evaluate each and every source before adding them to the collection. The criteria for the evaluation of this large variety of ready reference sources are : authority, scope, arrangement, treatment, format special features, Index, Bibliographirs etc.