Social Anthropology: Reference works

The Library holds a wide range of other printed reference materials including dictionaries, encyclopaedia, guides to current research etc. Some of the more useful ones are listed here and further examples will be found principally at the 306.03 classification with the main collection of anthropology books on Blue Area Floor 2. You can use Library Search to find the printed copy or view them online:

• Thomas Barfield (ed.), The dictionary of anthropology. 1997. (Blue, Floor 2: 306.03,B2) 
• Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer (eds.), Encyclopedia of social and cultural anthropology. 1996. (Blue,Floor 2: 306.03,B1 and Blue 2 Ref 306.03,B3)
• T. Ingold, Companion encyclopedia of anthropology, 2002. (Blue,Floor 2: 306.03,I2) 
• Adam Kuper and Jessica Kuper, The social science encyclopedia. Second edition, 1996. (Blue 2 Ref 303,K70)
• Richard B. Lee and Richard Daly (eds.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of hunters and gatherers. 1999. (Blue 2 Ref 306.364, L3)
• David Levinson and Melvin Ember (eds.), Encyclopedia of cultural anthropology. 1996. (Blue 2 Ref. 306.03,L1)
• Nigel Rapport and Joanna Overing, Social and cultural anthropology: the key concepts. 2007. (Blue,Floor 2: 306,R37)

Some reference sources are also available on the web. Have a look at the Kinship Glossary, a listing of some two hundred terms used in the description and analysis of kinship in the anthropological literature.

Bibliographies can provide useful introductions to an area of study.

In the Library, bibliographies on a subject are shelved with the books on that subject but their shelf numbers are prefixed with a B and they are shelved at the start of the sequence. For example, if you browsed along the shelves at B306 on Blue Area Floor 2, you would find a range of bibliographies on anthropological topics eg R.C. Westerman, 'Fieldwork in the library: a guide to research in anthropology and related area studies'.

Bibliographies are now being published on the internet. The following item will give you some idea of the type of resources:

• Hunter-Gatherer Bibliography

If you are looking for a concise account of an anthropologist's life and works, try the books shelved at 306.092 which are individual biographies of anthropologists, or 306.0922 which covers a small number of collective anthropological biographies. The section 309.1 brings together biographies of groups of social scientists.

The internet is also a valuable source of information - for example, the web site HyperGeertz gives access to a wide range of documentation by and about Clifford Geertz and the Ernest Gellner Resource Site provides biographical and contextual information.