Appendix C: Journalism: A Guide to Recent Literature - Acknowledgments

This volume builds on the strong shoulders of many predecessors. A number of earlier published journalism bibliographies—many of them included in Section 1 here—provided valuable leads and a quality check for important subjects and individual citations. Credit must be given to the pioneers in bibliographic efforts like this—such people as Ralph Nafziger, Eleanor Blum, Warren Price, and Ralph McCoy spring to mind as earlier bibliographic toilers (each produced a book-length bibliographic guide—Blum and McCoy did more than one) whose efforts have helped shape the book in your hands. Jo Cates has produced three editions of her invaluable modern guide to journalism reference sources. All of these people were preceded—Carl Cannon produced what appears to have been the first comprehensive bibliography in this field, for the New York Public Library, way back in 1924, though only some of it was annotated.

Among other resources used in the development of this bibliography, the first was a careful page-by-page review of my own Communication Booknotes Quarterly and its bimonthly predecessor, Communication Booknotes. Begun as a mere mimeographed newsletter in late 1969, editing and writing this publication over four decades has helped to hone my understanding of and appreciation for the huge literature of journalism and related fields.

Several individuals were very helpful in this effort. They are thanked here in alphabetical order. Bruce Austin of Rochester (New York) Institute of Technology, once one of my graduate students, has been a colleague and fellow book reviewer for years—his knowledge of books on motion pictures has been hugely helpful. James K. Bracken of Ohio State University's Memorial Library has been a bibliographic partner in numerous projects over the years. His knowledge of publication in the communications field is immense and he shares it readily. The 1998 bibliography we co-authored with Susan Hill was very useful in shaping the present project. Rick Mastroianni, the head of the Newseum's World Center Library (in Laurel, Maryland, outside of Washington, D.C.) was very helpful and made his wonderful collection available to me. Many additional citations resulted, as did corrections and updates of others. The University of Illinois communication librarian, Lisa Romero, produces quarterly listings of her collection's accessions that were very helpful for inclusion of recent publications. David Sheddon, the Poynter Institute's library director, has made a hugely useful series of current subject bibliographies available online and was most generous to let me use them. His lists include vast numbers of online sites which change so easily.

These days, producing, checking, and correcting bibliographic work is made far easier by the gremlins (in the positive sense of that term) who work for the Library of Congress and so many other library websites, Jeff Bezos's http://Amazon.com, and the thousands of second-hand book dealers who list material on the pages of http://abebooks.com. These last two are among the most used sites on my computer. All these online sources are invaluable ways of double-checking things like a publisher, edition, or date—and sometimes even nailing down a firm title when sources disagree (and if the book itself is not readily available). They make it possible to conduct much of this bibliographic work on a desktop computer equipped with a broadband web connection.

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