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The Main Reading Room Book Collection
The Main Reading Room Reference Collection has materials considered primarily to have reference value. Users consult these materials for specific information rather than for cover-to-cover reading. The Reference Collection is current, mostly English-language, contains 5,000 to 7,000 titles ranging from international, to national and to regional levels.
What's in the Reference Collection?
The Reference Collection consists of three broad categories which include books, dictionaries, textbooks and medical atlases, in addition to various print indexes and approximately 140 journal titles:
- Journals (the "W1 collection")
- The W1 collection consists of approximately 140 journal titles that are highly used in the Reading Room.
- Monographs and serials
- The A-WZ collection contains textbooks in the core, related, and peripheral subject areas as defined by NLM, as well as traditional reference tools, e.g., dictionaries, biographical directories, handbooks, atlases, guides, membership directories, sourcebooks, almanacs, etc.
- Abstracts, indexes, bibliographies, lists, and works in library science (the "Z collection")
- Works in the Z collection may be published either as monographs or as serials.
Finding Items in the Reference Collection
- Use LocatorPlus, the NLM online catalog, to search for books by author, title, subject, number, or word. You may limit your search to books shelved in the Reading Room by setting search limits in LocatorPlus to the item type "Book" and the location "Reference Collection". These items are shelved in the public area for immediate self-service access.
Last reviewed: 10 July 2008
Last updated: 10 July 2008
First published: 31 January 1999
Metadata| Permanence level: Permanence Not Guaranteed