An Interdisciplinary Bibliograpghy of Freshwater Crayfishes (Astacoidea and Parastacoidea) [Hardcover]

HART CW (Author), Janice Clark (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 498 pages
• Publisher: Smithsonian; Rev Upd Su edition (April 17, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874744644
• ISBN-13: 978-0874744644
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,543,911 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Reference Book on Crayfish and Branchiobdellids, December 9, 2001

By 

James J. Kirk (Goldendale, Washington USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Interdisciplinary Bibliograpghy of Freshwater Crayfishes (Astacoidea and Parastacoidea) (Hardcover)

Those with a serious, scientific interest in crayfish or branchiobdellids will find this is to be an indispensable reference (branchiobdellids are little worms that attach by suckers to the outside of crayfish, or live in their gill chambers). It is a comprehensive bibliography on crayfish, and includes citations to all references through 1987. For those not familiar with scientific bibliographies, this book basically is a list of all books, scientific papers, and other documents written about crayfish, from Aristotle's time through 1987 -- it does not include actual information about crayfish, but is the key to finding that information.

Assembling a bibliography like this takes years of dedicated work. This particular bibliography is outstanding for a number of reasons.

Most entries are annotated, using codes to conserve space -- the need to refer to the two-page table of codes is a little inconvenient, but there is no other way to annotate without greatly increasing the length of the book. Annotations are extremely valuable to those using a bibliography, and their inclusion makes this bibliography particularly valuable.

The entries are both alphabetized by author and sequentially numbered. The comprehensive index cites to the sequential numbers to conserve space. The entries for 1986-1987 appear in a separate list at the end of the book, with their own index, but that does not detract from the utility of the book.

The actual list of references is in small print, but the entries are still easy to read -- with over 12,000 entries, small print is necessary to keep the book at a size that is convenient to use.

The authors explain in detail how they assembled the bibliography, and offer the user a number of practical tips. An interesting bar graph following the preface shows the geometric growth of the crayfish literature during most of the 20th century.

The copy I purchased came with a CD. I have not had time to fully explore the CD, but it should be extremely useful to anyone who needs to assemble a preliminary bibliography on a limited aspect of crayfish biology.

Finally, the full-color photo of a longpincered crayfish on the dust jacket is striking.

This is not bedside reading for most folks, but it is an extremely valuable reference for anyone interested in studying crayfish or branchiobdellids. Thanks to the authors for a monumental task well done.