Europa Publications

Part of the Europa Biographical Reference
series that also includes the International Who’s Who in Music,
International Who’s Who in Poetry, and more. Data can be
accessed on subscription via the website www.worldwhoswho.com
Classical Music
As with the popular music volume, the coverage is world-wide and
eclectic – performers, musicians, composers, conductors,
journalists and other figures are included. Paul McCartney is in
both volumes, as are Stephen Sondheim, Myleene Klass; Tim Rice
is only in the popular music volume, surprisingly. Film score
composers such as Howard Shore and Hans Zimmer are also in
both; the entries are the same.
The appendices are lists of orchestras, opera companies, music
festivals, music organisations, and competitions, by country. Like
the popular music volume there is an obituary list.
This is a thorough list for larger libraries, and those with substantial music departments.
In both volumes, I’ve looked at many entries, but haven’t found an
obvious Mountweazel – a fictitious entry in reference works
designed to catch out plagiarists, such as ‘esquivalience’ in the
2005 New Oxford American Dictionary. I would love to know if
Routledge go in for that type of trap!
Gary Archer
Solihull Libraries… (altro)

Part of the Europa Biographical Reference series that also includes the International Who’s Who in Music, International Who’s Who in Poetry, and more. Data can be accessed on subscription via the website www.worldwhoswho.com
Popular Music
The coverage of this volume is worldwide ranges from performers
and musicians, producers, DJs (usually the ones who perform
rather than radio DJs), managers, composers, songwriters, and
other figures such as music journalists. Musical genres range from
current pop (Justin Bieber, Beyonce, Katy Perry) through rock and
rap music, jazz, folk, country, musicals, films and film soundtracks.
On one page you can see Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Abba), Loretta
Lynn, Vera Lynn and Jeff Lynne of ELO. What is interesting is that people included are not just current, but
‘former’ performers – Andrew Ridgeley (ex-Wham!) , Babylon Zoo,
Tanita Tikaram, and former members of B*witched are all listed. I
tried to think of people not included and can only cite some
Osmonds, Yazz and Des O’Connor (Engelbert Humperdinck and
Tom Jones are included).
The book is up to date enough to record the death of Whitney
Houston (11 Feb 2012) – there is a short obituary list at the
beginning, which merely records the date of death, presumably
with the assumption that older editions of the Who’s Who will be
available.
Information included is the usual biographical sort, provided by the subject with further research by the editorial department; this will mean the usual coyness over years of birth in some cases!
Contact details are usually agents or record companies, but
weblinks and email addresses are included. There are appendices
of festivals, music awards, music organisations, and music
websites, as well as a list of groups that gives group member
names.
Many performers of course have ‘stage’ names; the usual practice
is that the main entry will be under the pseudonym. In some cases
there is a reference from the real name (eg Gordon Sumner leads
to Sting, Diddy to Sean Combs), but not always. Graham
McPherson (Suggs from Madness) is under his real name without
a reference, Enya, Timbaland and Meat Loaf are just under their
pseudonyms. Chuck D of Public Enemy is under C but Mike D of
the Beastie Boys is under D and Lady Gaga is under L without
references from Gaga or her real name (Stefani Germanotta).
This library has a regular customer who asks for contact details for performers of varying levels of obscurity, and this volume will be tremendously useful to that type of enquiry, where people are not in the traditional Who’s Who.… (altro)

The territories of the Russian Federation 2012
13th edition
The Europa Territories of the World Series
Routledge, 2012.
x, 327 pages
ISBN: 9-781857436464
ISSN: 1465-461x
This directory covers the politics and economy of the regions of the Russian Federation. It contains four sections: introduction
including an expert article about the rise and fall of regionalism in Russia, chronology of main events and a statistical overview; territorial surveys of each of the 83 federal units; a bibliography; and indexes of the territories, economic areas and a gazetteer of alternative and historic names. A map of all the territories and maps orientating the reader within each region are also included.
The entries for each region includes the historical and political
context, an economic survey covering transport, main industries
and level of economic activity and contact details for government
officials.
The value of the directory is that it contains information that is both hard to find and up to date. Information has been sourced from the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics and other Russian agencies. Unlike other "doing business" in Russia books which focus primarily on Moscow and perhaps St Petersburg, this guide opens up the whole country and exposes the huge variations
within it. Official statistics used often date from October 2010 and the chronology goes up to January 2012, with reference to
legislation coming into effect in the future.
However the strength of the book, the regional focus, is also its
downside in terms of usability. The index of place names only
includes regions but not important cities which do not have the
same name as a region. Nor does the initial map of all regions
include any cities. This means that to find Kazan or Vladivostok ,
for example, the user needs to first identify the region, (Republic of Tatarstan and Maritime (Primorskii) Krai respectively) and only then is the information forthcoming. Nor is there an index of industries, requiring leafing through the whole book to find which regions are important for what. There are no ways to readily identify the special economic zones, those regions which have established western industries and those which primarily operate only within the CIS, information contained within each entry but not indexed. Online access, if available, would overcome these problems.
A second usability issue, further exacerbating the problem of
approaching the content in any other way than by region, is the
dense narrative structure of the entries. Much of the data - km of
paved roads and railway lines, percentage of population
economically active and employed in different industries,
contribution of different industries to the regional economy , trade within and beyond the CIS - would be better presented in tabular form. The chronological approach, as used in the introductory section for all of Russia, would also make the account of the key historical and political events for each region easier to assimilate.
Overall the book repays the effort required to use it. For the non
Russian speaker especially it would otherwise be very difficult to
find this level of detail about what makes up Russia today.
Helen Edwards
Library Project Manager
SKOLKOVO Moscow School of Management… (altro)