Performing Arts Research; A Guide to Information Resources

Detroit, MI: Gale Research Company, 1976. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good. xi, [1], 280, [4] pages. Index. Name [Chris Sterling] and date in ink on fep. Pencil erasure residue noted in a very few places. This is part of the Gale Information Guide Library. This is believed to have belonged to Christopher H. Sterling (born 1943 in Washington, D.C.) an American media historian. Sterling is professor of media and public affairs at The George Washington University (Washington, D.C.) where he has taught since 1982. Author of numerous books on media and telecommunications plus a host of research and bibliographic articles. He was an acting chair in the early 1990s and served as associate dean for graduate studies in arts and sciences from 1994 to 2001. In 1969, he founded what is now Communication Booknotes Quarterly and serves on the editorial boards of several research journals (he edited what was then the Journal of Broadcasting for five years in the early 1970s). Sterling is the recipient of several awards, including being named IRTS Stanton Fellow and the Broadcast Education Association's Distinguished Scholar and Education Service awards. He served as BEA's president for two years in the 1980s. Sterling taught at Temple University through the 1970s, then moved to Washington to serve as a special assistant to FCC Commissioner Ann Jones from 1980 to 1982. Sterling has also published articles about several of his avocations, including Sir Winston Churchill, the development of commercial aviation (including Commercial Air Transport Books: An Annotated Bibliography [1996] and a Supplement [1998]), ocean liners, and the history of fortification. This was the first volume in Gale's Performing Arts Information Guide Series. The contents address: Guides, Dictionaries, Encyclopedia, Handbooks, Directories, Play Indexes and Finding Lists, Sources for Reviews, Bibliographies, Indexes and Abstracts, and Illustrative and Audiovisual Sources. Marion K. Whalon was, at the time of this publication, the collection Development Librarian for Humanities and Fine Arts ad the Shields Library at the University of California, Davis. She had previously earned Master of Arts and a Master of Library Science degrees. She had nearly two decades of professional experience at this point in her career. She was a member of the Theatre Library Association and the California Association of Theatre Specialists. This work, which was of seminal importance when first published--filling a significant gap in the tools available to researchers and practitioners alike. Now, it has become a gem of immensely greater value, serving not only as a pioneering work, but also as a snapshot in time as to what was the state of knowledge in Performing Arts Information Resources at the beginning of the last quarter of the 20th century. It also represents a survey in to the then available forms of information resources, some of which are no longer generally available (such as microfoms). It further represents an epitome as to the state of the art in the development, production, and publication of such guides to information resources.