A detailed reference work that documents every aspect of the American public library experience through topical entries, statistics, biographies, and profiles. The American Public Library Handbook is the first reference work to focus on all aspects of the American public library experience, providing a topical perspective through comprehensive essays and biographical information on important public librarians. Based upon the author's own notes and extensive experience, as well as library periodicals, library reference books, monographs, textbooks, Internet sources, and correspondence with individual libraries, this book comprises nearly 1,000 entries addressing all aspects of public library service. Each topical essay considers terminology of the area covered, its historical context, and current concerns and issues. Biographies highlight the philosophical perspective of the individuals covered, while entries on specific libraries present timely data and interesting facts about each facility. This unique handbook also offers up-to-date statistics, historical highlights, and information about programs and events of individual libraries. Profiles of individual libraries and biographies of important public librarians

Opera is the only guide to the research writings on all aspects of opera. This second edition presents 2,833 titles--over 2,000 more than the first edition--of books, parts of books, articles and dissertations with full bibliographic descriptions and critical annotations. Users will find the core literature on the operas of 320 individual composers and details of operatic life in 43 countries. All relevant works through to November 1999 have been considered, covering more than fifteen years of literature since the first edition was published.

Praise for the first edition'An essential reference tool for all academic libraries as well as public libraries' - Choice UL

Zarlino’s Le Istitutioni harmoniche, published in 1558, is one of the most influential music treatises of all time. To his contemporaries it revealed the secrets of composition he had learned from Adrian Willaert, who brought to Italy the polyphonic art of the Netherlands. To the modern scholar Zarlino’s treatise illumines the compositional technique of the golden age of vocal polyphony. The essence of this art is contained in Part III, “The Art of Counterpoint,” which is here translated into English for the first time.