This new set is another entry in the growing collection of Beacham's guides to endangered, threatened, and extinct species. Previous volumes include the one-volume World Wildlife Fund Guide to Extinct Species of Modern Times RBB S 1 97 and the four-volume Official World Wildlife Fund Guide to Endangered Species of North America (1994). The current set treats 351 species, mammals only, and appears to be derived from the same database of information presented in Beacham's International Threatened, Endangered and Extinct Species on CD-ROM RBB My 15 97, which covers 1,400 species. Data are provided on mammalian species listed as threatened or endangered by the USFWS (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). A third volume will cover all other foreign species listed by this agency. (A master list of protected species is available at FWS' Web site at risk by the IUCN (The World Conservation Union) or by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). There is an entry for the previously endangered eastern gray kangaroo to show the process by which one species has been successfully recovered. The authors use the above-mentioned organizations as the authorities for their work. For example, in the introductory section on 'Gorillas and Orangutans, ' they have chosen to follow the USFWS' designation for endangered species and the IUCN's placement of apes in the Pongidae family rather than Hominidae. Each set of species accounts includes a general introductory section giving the popular name, the family and subfamily scientific names, and a general description of the characteristics of the species. These sections often include information on threats and are especially revealing, telling us, for example, that mountain gorillas are killed occasionally by carnivores but their main predator is man. The specific accounts follow, in typical Beacham format, with scientific and familiar names, a color photo, and an accompanying list giving status, date listed, family, description, habitat, food, reproduction, threats, and range. Short paragraphs expand on these themes and add information on conservation and recovery efforts. Several pages of references, a glossary, and a useful country index complete volume two. Sponsored by the IUCN, Encyclopedia of Endangered Species RBB F 1 95 is handy because it includes mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates, and plants in one volume. However, the black-and-white photographs do not compare to those in the Beacham volumes or in the ten volumes of Marshall Cavendish's Endangered Wildlife of the World RBB My 1 93. The latter is best suited for young readers, whereas Beacham guides are suitable for any age level in any library collecting material on endangered species. The photographs on the Beacham CD-ROM are the ones used in the print volumes but are much less clear. The CD-ROM enables users to move around in the database via hyperlinks. However, at this time, the books are easier to use because of the confusing structure of the user interface on the disk. ; 1,085p-

The biological sciences cover a broad array of literature types, from younger fields like molecular biology with its reliance on recent journal articles, genomic databases, and protocol manuals to classic fields such as taxonomy with its scattered literature found in monographs and journals from the past three centuries. Using the Biological Literature: A Practical Guide, Fourth Edition is an annotated guide to selected resources in the biological sciences, presenting a wide-ranging list of important sources. This completely revised edition contains numerous new resources and descriptions of all entries including textbooks. The guide emphasizes current materials in the English language and includes retrospective references for historical perspective and to provide access to the taxonomic literature. It covers both print and electronic resources including monographs, journals, databases, indexes and abstracting tools, websites, and associations—providing users with listings of authoritative informational resources of both classical and recently published works. With chapters devoted to each of the main fields in the basic biological sciences, this book offers a guide to the best and most up-to-date resources in biology. It is appropriate for anyone interested in searching the biological literature, from undergraduate students to faculty, researchers, and librarians. The guide includes a supplementary website dedicated to keeping URLs of electronic and web-based resources up to date, a popular feature continued from the third edition.