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What is a book?
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Books, Periodicals, Reports, Documents,
and Other Information Packages

No matter who produces the resource it must take a tangible form if people are to understand it. The form in which the resource is produced will affect the manner in which people comprehend it. Books, periodicals, newspapers, films, television, and radio all have different audiences and are accessible to different people in different ways. For example, most serious scholarly research is published in books and journals because these forms of publication have been defined by our culture as appropriate for scholarly communication. Occasionally serious research will be presented in the format of a documentary film, but usually the film medium is reserved for entertainment in American society.

What is a book?

The American Heritage Dictionary (3rd ed.) defines a book as:
"A set of written, printed, or blank pages fastened along one side and encased between protective covers." This definition appears to be quite straightforward and obvious. However, to be information literate you must understand a number of things about books that you may never have considered.

Not all books are the same. Generally speaking, books are divided into the categories of fiction and non-fiction. Works of fiction contain material that is not true to life even though the events reported may be based on the real life experience of the author. Characters and scenes are invented by the author to tell a story. Novels, short stories, and poems are examples of fiction.

Non-fiction books deal with more factual information. All reference books, history, literary criticism, and science books are classed as non-fiction.

Organization of Scholarly Books

For now, we'll focus on the general features of scholarly, non-fiction books.

Once past the cover of the book, the first significant page is called the title page. The title page typically provides the full title and subtitle; the author, editor, compiler, or translator; the edition; place of publication, publisher, date of publication; and copyright information. Your professors will require you to document or cite the sources you use in your research. The title page contains the information necessary for citing your sources.

In works of non-fiction, a table of contents usually follows the title page. Many contain preliminary material: a preface, foreword, or introduction describing the author's purpose (and point of view) in writing the book as well as the subject matter to follow.

The main body of the book is generally divided into chapters. Each chapter may identify the sources used in the form of footnotes (at the bottoms of the pages), or endnotes (and the end of each chapter).
In many books, the notes appear at the back of the book. Scanning footnotes and endnotes is a productive and efficient way to find additional sources for your research.

The back of a scholarly book may also contain:

• glossary--a list with definitions of unfamiliar terms used in the text
  
• appendices--supplemental materials, charts, tables, maps, statistics


• bibliography--a list of all the books, articles, and other resources the author used in writing the book.
  Scanning the bibliography is one of the best ways to find additional high quality sources for your research.


• index--an alphabetical list of terms, subjects, names discussed in the book to aid in locating information within the text of the work.

Books are most easily located using library catalogs or bibliographies.