Why background?
Scenario: you're assigned a paper topic that you know nothing about, and Wikipedia hasn't helped ... What do you do? Find a subject encyclopedia!
Background sources (encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.) provide summary and factual information. They generally contain well established knowledge and can provide a basic understanding on which to build. Use background sources to:
- find basic concepts and viewpoints of topic
- get the historical context and relationships to other topics
- identify and define specialized terms used to discuss the topics
- find or verify data, facts, formulas, etc.
In other words, these are resources for getting started when you're dealing with a subject about which you know very little.
What's the difference?
Encyclopedias vs. Dictionaries
Umm, often the only real difference is the length of the entries or articles: longer for encyclopedias, and short for dictionaries.
Beyond that, encyclopedias sometimes include author 'bylines' for individual articles, whereas dictionaries rarely do. But these are guidelines only: the publisher (or editor) will call it what they like!
Directories
- Hoover's Online
Provides profiles of 12 million companies, with in-depth coverage of 40,000 of the world's top business enterprises. - ReferenceUSA Has two parts: a business directory and a consumer directory ('white pages')
Collections of reference sources
- Credo Reference An online collection of ~100 dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference books for many subject areas.
- Gale Virtual Reference 40+ online encyclopedias mostly for the humanities and social sciences. Includes several huge, multi-volume sets ...
- Oxford Reference Online 175+ dictionaries and encyclopedias for subject areas and languages
Andertoons comic
Encyclopedias
Encyclopedia of Management
6th edition (2009) is online. Older 5th edition is in Raynor Ref (call #: HD 30.15 .E49 2006)
The Blackwell encyclopedia of management: Business ethics - Patricia H. Werhane and R. Edward Freeman (ed.)
Call Number: Raynor Ref HF 5387 .B55 2005
Encyclopedia of the history of American management - Morgen Witzel (general editor)
(2005)
Encyclopedia of American Industries
Call Number: Ref HC 102 .E53 2001
More recent edition available online within the database Business & Company Resource Center. Use Advanced Search: choose Industry Overviews as your 'content area'.- Encyclopedia of Global Industries
Call Number: Ref HD 2324 .E53 2003
More recent edition available online within the database Business & Company Resource Center. Use the Advanced Search; choose 'Industry Overviews' as your content area. 
Encyclopedia of Industrial and Organizational Psychology - Steven G. Rogelberg, ed.
Call Number: Ref HF 5548.8 .E498 2007
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
Call Number: Electronic Resource - 2008 edition
Covers scholarship and fields that have emerged and matured since the publication of the original international edition in 1979. Features new articles and biographies contributed by scholars from around the world on a wide array of global topics in the social sciences,
Dictionaries
A Dictionary of business - John Pallister, Alan Isaacs (eds.)
3rd edition, 2002.
Dictionary of finance and investment terms - John Downes, Jordan Elliot Goodman
7th edition, 2006.- Dictionary of human resources and personnel management - A. Ivanovic, P.H. Collin
(2003) 
Understanding American business jargon: a dictionary - W. Davis Folsom
Call Number: Raynor Ref HF 1001 .F65 2005
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