referencebooks

Biographical Dictionary of American Newspaper Columnists

By Sam G. Riley

Published by Greenwood Press, 1995.

This is a 6.5" by 9.5" clothbound book running to 411 pages including the index and bibliography, plus a preface.

The preface begins,

The Biographical Dictionary of American Newspaper Columnists provides concise professional biographical sketches of six hundred columnists -- from the time men and women having this job description appeared on U.S. papers in the Civil War era to the present. Each entry contains the following items, if they could be ascertained: a heading consisting of the columnist's full name and dates of birth and death, below which appear a statement of the individual's principle accomplishments, place of birth, name under which the columnist has normally written, the columnist's education, a career summary, further information about the nature of the individual's column, a list of the earliest editions of all known books authored or edited by the columnist, and references, where good general references could be found.

Opening the book at random, I am page 214, looking at entries for Henry Hicks Messick (14 Aug. 1922- ), Russel L. Metz (25 Feb. 1919- ), and Ernest Louis Meyer (1892-1952). Each of these entries provides basic professional biographical information that may not be possible to find in any other source, which is the real value of the book.

The book's main weakness is that it is ten years old and consequently somewhat out of date. If the book were revised today there would be many columnists added and many whose date of death would be listed.

This is an important item for libraries supporting the study of journalism.