Field Guides for Everyone A Guide to their Diversity

The well-known Peterson, Golden, and Audubon series and the typical bird, flower, and tree guides are just the tip the iceberg.. The Golden Field Guide series had sold about seven millio

Field Guides for Everyone: A Guide to their Diversity

1993 Reference Services Review 21(4): 43-48, 61.

Schmidt is the assistant biology librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Abstract

While much of today’s interest in the environment focuses on saving the world, a lot of it relates

to learning about nature Field guides—those small books or pamphlets used in the field by amateurs to aid in identifying objects and organisms—are among the most popular natural history guides for the general public They include the well-known Peterson, Golden, and Audubon series and the typical bird, flower, and tree guides In this article, Schmidt offers a general overview of the types of field guides currently available Her intent is not to recommend but rather to show some of the diversity in the field

Field Guides for Everyone: A Guide to Their Diversity

Introduction

There a great deal of interest in the environment these days, and while much of that interest focuses on saving the world, a lot of it relates to learning about nature Field guides are among the most popular natural history guides for the general public, to the point that it sometimes seems that almost every household must have at least one field guide lurking in a corner What many people may not realize, however, is that there is an incredible variety of field guides available for inquiring naturalists The well-known Peterson, Golden, and Audubon series and the typical bird, flower, and tree guides are just the tip the iceberg

This article is intended as a general overview of the types of field guides currently available, not

as a review of specific guides There are many field guide reviews in both the library and natural history literature Some good articles include "Armchair Birding" (1985), "Getting Serious About Wildflowers?" (1989), Bishop (1990), Chiang (1984), Dunne, Swain, and LeBlond (1987), Kinch (1984), Klaas (1984), and Potts (1985) (The Dunne et al article is particularly interesting since the authors include the weight

of the field guides in their review Obviously the authors know what they are doing.) The mention of field guides by name here should not be taken as a recommendation of these field guides over other, similar, guides My intent is simply to show some of the diversity in the field The selection of a field guide is a personal matter The cited review articles did not arrive at any consensus in their recommendations, which shows something about the state of the field

Many books purporting to be are not in fact true field guides As used in this article, "field guide"

is a book or pamphlet small enough to be taken out into the field for the use of amateurs to aid in

identifying an object or organism (Many books titled “field guide" are too large or heavy to be lugged around by any normal person on a hike.) Field guides also usually include many pictures, either

photographs or drawings, of the organisms they identify Another less diagnostic characteristic of a field guide is the price If it costs more than about $25.00, it probably is not a field guide, regardless what the title claims

The modern field guide has its beginning with the now-famous A Field Guide to Birds by Roger

Tory Peterson, which was published in 1934 There were, of course, many identification guides prior to Peterson's field guide Nature study has been popular for years, if not centuries, in both the United States and Britain Unfortunately, many early guides depended on having a specimen in hand for identification

Nowadays the idea of encouraging an amateur to kill an animal in order to identify it is unthinkable Peterson’s innovation was to provide the "field marks" which show the characteristic features of a bird which aid in identification (Brooks, 1985) Many of the field guides published since Peterson's first guide have used some variation of his field mark system

Field guides are very popular books While there are no sales figures for the field as a whole, the figures for the major series are very impressive As of about ten years ago (Applebaum, 1983), the

Peterson Field Guide series had sold about nine million copies Peterson's A Field Guide to the Birds

alone had sold about three million copies The Golden Field Guide series had sold about seven million

copies, with Robbins' Birds of North America selling more than million copies by itself The first

Audubon guides, the Audubon Society Field Guide to Birds of North America, Eastern Region (Bull, 1977) and Western Region (Udvardy, 1977) had sold well over a million copies between 1977 and 1983.

Field Guides in Libraries

With all of those individuals buying their own field guides, why should a library buy them as well, especially since their very popularity may lead patrons to steal or lose them? Even those people who

do not have a field guide may have a question about the identification a plant or animal Any librarian who has ever had a patron come in with a limp flower or twig knows the value of a field guide Field guides are also excellent sources of pictures of even the most obscure living things They may also be used to find general, and easily understood, information on an organism, such as where it lives, what it eats, and how common it is Field guides can be used to learn more about the natural history of an area They are also relatively inexpensive, especially on an information per unit cost basis Field guides are useful in school, academic, and public libraries

Finding field guides in libraries is not as straightforward as one would like, unfortunately Not all field guides have the words "field guide" in the title, and there is no handy subject listing for field guides, such as "Birds Thailand Field Guides" The best heading in the Library of Congress subject headings is the sub-heading "Identification"—but not all field guides are given that cataloging while many manuals and other technical books are One strategy which librarians and patrons can use to find field guides in libraries is to do a title search using words such as “guide”, “field guide”, “pocket guide”, “handbook”,

“identifying” or “identification”, and so on In paper card catalogs, of course, this only works if those terms come at the beginning of the title Another strategy is to do a subject search on the organism desired, and then pick out items which either have identification as a sub-heading or have some of the previously-mentioned title words Unfortunately, neither of these strategies will unearth all field guides

Field Guide Series

The various field guide series will be mentioned frequently throughout this article Many guides

do come in series, but there are also many guides which stand alone and are at least as valuable as similar guides in series One major advantage of a field guide series is that the publisher or editor of the series imposes uniformity on the authors of the field guides, so that one always knows what to expect from the series The prestige of the series also helps reassure people who know nothing about the subject that they are getting a good guide Guides in series have another advantage to the uncertain collection development librarian One does not need to guess what natural history topics are going to be popular The series publisher has already done the guessing for you

Almost every publisher seems to have a field guide series Some of them are reprints of older guides or translations of foreign titles, so it pays to check the fine print on the title page of an unfamiliar

series Many of these repackaged guides are perfectly legitimate and useful but older titles may not reflect changes in the taxonomy and common names of some groups We wouldn’t want to force a beginning bird watcher to commit the faux pas of calling an American kestrel a sparrowhawk! (The name was officially changed a few years ago.)

Field Guide Levels

Field guides come in many different levels, beginning with the many basic or children's guides Many of us grew up on the little Golden Guides and then graduated to more advanced field guides The Peterson First Guide and the Audubon Society Pocket Guide series are similar to the Golden Guides There are also many children's field guides which are not in series that may be useful to more than just children Restricting themselves to the most common organisms, these guides can be quick and easy to use for anyone looking for general information

Most of us are familiar with the intermediate guides, the most common including the Audubon Field Guides, the Golden Field Guide series, and the Peterson Field Guides.Unless otherwise stated, all field guides mentioned in this article are intermediate guides

Advanced guides are designed for amateurs, not professional biologists, but go far beyond what most casual seekers want or need The advanced guides may go into more detail than the more basic

guides or they may cover particularly difficult groups such as seabirds or grasses The Audubon Society Master Guide to Birding (Farrand, 1983), an advanced guide, is quite similar to the intermediate Audubon

guides in its format The main difference is a more detailed description of each species than usual, and

more attention is given to identifying difficult species Unfortunately, since the Master Guide to Birding

is in three volumes, it is not very portable or inexpensive It is probably more useful as a source of backup information than as a true field guide

Another advanced guide is Seabirds: An Identification Guide by Peter Harrison (1985) Although

it is also a little larger than most "normal" guides, it is quite standard in its format, but for what British birders know as "jizz" Jizz is defined as “a combination of ill-defined elements which allows a bird to be labelled as ‘elegant’, ‘powerful', 'impressive', etc." (p 20) For instance, the Little Shearwater "recalls miniature Manx Shearwater but whiter face and shorter wings impart distinctive 'aukish' jizz" (p 266), which is helpful if you already know what an auk looks like

Geographical Coverage

WThere are field guides for just about every place in the world, and many of them are in English If you travel, there is probably a field guide for your area and/or subject (if you are going to Australia and worry

a lot, try Venomous Creatures of Australia: A Field Guide with Notes on First Aid (Sutherland, 1985)) I’d

certainly like to spot some of The Coral Reef Fishes of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao (Nagelkerken,

1980) (written in English and Papiamentu) The British Collins field guide series are particularly good at covering the world in a standard format, and many have been reprinted by Viking Penguin

Most field guides cover a fairly wide geographical area, such as Wildflowers: A Quick

Identification Guide to the Wildflowers of North America (Mohlenbrock, 1987) Some field guides, such

as the previously mentioned Seabirds: An Identification Guide, cover the entire world This works in the

case of seabirds, since they are found over a wide area, but worldwide guides are less useful for more restricted species Guide users do not want to look through pages of flowers found in boreal Canada in

order to find a similar flower of central Florida Local guides, such as City of Trees: The Complete Field Guide to the Trees of Washington, D.C (Choukas-Bradley, 1987), can be very useful for the stay-at-home

crowd Some of these local guides, however, are very low-budget affairs, and may be difficult for

librarians to find Local parks, environmental or horticultural groups, colleges or universities, and natural history museums are good sources

Almost every major state and national park has a field guide for species found within park These can be very useful both for nearby libraries and for libraries serving travel who want to plan ahead These field guides can be overlooked by librarians who check only the usual commercial sources, and who do not also pursue government documents

Organisms Covered

The variety of organisms that can be identified with a field guide is occasionally overwhelming Everyone expects field guides on birds, flowers, trees, mammals, insects, and so on, but many more are

available Ever wonder who built that nest? Try A Field Guide to the Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds (Harrison, 1984) Have you ever wanted to know what the stuff on that rock is? Try Mosses, Lichens, and Ferns of Northwestern North America (Vitt, Marsh, and Bovey, 1989) There are

also field guides to mushrooms (poisonous and edible), edible plants, medicinal plants, corals, fishes (freshwater and saltwater), whales, crabs, seashells, and on and on

While most guides cover only one group, many guides identify the most common inhabitants of a

particular area or ecosystem, no matter which classification they belong to Western Forests (Whitney,

1985), an Audubon guide, is a good example This 671-page volume includes mushrooms, trees,

wildflowers, insects, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals of the western forests One problem with these comprehensive guides is that the number of species covered and the length of their descriptions must be kept to a minimum in order to keep the field guides portable I have frequently found that the plant or animal I want to identify has not been included in such a general guide Still, in an unfamiliar area people may prefer to carry just one guide, rather than an entire library of them

Unusual field guides

For jaded natural historians, there are a variety of nontraditional field guides that deserve

mention At least two series have been produced on plastic cards, for instance If you are going to the

beach, why risk your expensive paper field guide when you can take Mac's Field Guide to Northwest Coastal Invertebrates (MacGowan, 1984) and not worry about the water? And if you snorkeler's can’t

remember what a fish looks like long enough to get back to the beach to look it up, try swimming with the Waterproof Guide to Corals and Fishes of Florida, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean (Greenberg, 1977) (64 pages of corals and fishes on waterproof, greaseproof, tear-resistant plastic with a rustproof binding)

All of the guides discussed previously are genuine guides to floras and faunas However, there is

another class of field guide altogether, the humorous guide Some of these guides, such as A Field Guide

to Little-Known and Seldom-Seen Birds of North America (Sill, Sill, and Sill, 1988), "identify"

nonexistent creatures although I could swear I've seen some of them, such as the Great-Toed Clapboard Pecker, a woodpecker which has "the obnoxious habit of searching for food on the exterior of residential homes Feeding activity peaks about an hour before the alarm clock rings (p 32) Others, such as

Flattened Fauna: A Field Guide to Common Animals of Roads, Streets, and Highways (Knutson, 1987),

discuss real animals in a humorous manner (animals which have lost their third dimension, i.e roadkills) While a library may not want to collect these field guides as such, they do provide a safety valve for stressed-out birders and other hassled naturalists

Children and those stressed-out birders might also enjoy the many field guide coloring books

The Peterson A Field Guide to Endangered Wildlife Coloring Book (Walton, 1991), for instance, includes

descriptions and line drawings of endangered and extinct wildlife for would-be artists to color in The series even includes color sketches for those who insist on accuracy (This stern authority seems a little pointless in the case of the dinosaur coloring book.)

There are also many posters made from the illustrations from field guides which might add a little class or color to a library and educate patrons at the same time These materials could also serve as tools

in a library skills class or program

Field guides to the Nonliving

All of the titles listed above identify living organisms, but there are also many guides to other objects, including rocks, minerals, gemstones, geological formations, fossils, shells, stars, planets, the weather, and atmospheric phenomena All the major field guide series include guides to at least some of

these subjects, and there are many individual titles as well One inclusive example is the Henry Holt Guide to Minerals, Rocks, and Fossils (Hamilton, 1989)

Birder's Guides

Birders (and even the more casual birdwatchers) probably claim the greatest variety of field guides and related aides of any group Most audiovisual guides, for instance, are for birders The

Audubon Society's Videoguide to the Birds of North America is one example of a visual guide For the less

experienced would-be birder, there are also videos on how to watch birds, such as the Peterson video

Watching Birds Recordings of bird songs are available in several formats The Peterson audio guide to Eastern and Central Bird Songs, for instance, is out as CD, cassette, or record.

Almost every part of the United States (or the world, for that matter) that has any resident or

migratory birders is covered by a guide to the best birding spots One example is Birds and Birding on the Mississippi Coast (Toups 1987) There are also several guides that cover wider areas in less detail,

and other guides on when to find birds in an area Birders also enjoy checklists, which keep track of the birds seen These range from simple lists for small areas such as local or state parks to elaborate

combination guidebooks and checklists The small local checklists may be difficult to find, since many of them are created as labors of love by local birders on shoestring budgets Local parks or recreation boards and local birding groups are good sources for these focused checklists Major publishers are also quite

willing to take advantage of birders’ love of lists, and offer items such as The Bird Watcher’s Diary

(Reilly, 1987) which includes lists, bird lore, and tips on bird watching

Other guides

Some titles are not true field guides, but which are of interest to naturalists Guides to attracting wildlife are a useful adjunct to field guides, for instance, since they help bring the wildlife to the observer Guides to observing wildlife can add an extra dimension to the natural experience as well There are many series and individual titles which discuss attract and observing wildlife especially (you guessed it) birds The Stokes Nature Guides are a good example of such a series

Also useful for amateur naturalists are works providing general information on various

ecosystems The Sierra Club Naturalist's Guides to various wild places (the Sierra Mountains, New England, and so on) cover the natural history of an area, rather than just identifying the animals or plants

found there This distinguishes these guides from field guides such as the Audubon Society's Western Forests, which superficially resemble them These two types of guides can be complementary; use the

natural history guides to bone up on an area before going there, and take along a field guide when you go

Technical Guides

Most of the items mentioned above are designed for the layperson There are also technical guides that, although designed for the use of biologists, may provide answers to an amateur’s questions These include manuals, handbooks, floras and faunas, technical checklists, atlases, and keys The first four are most similar in purpose to field guides, providing technical descriptions of a particular group of organisms, including physical description and identification, habitat and habits, range, and so on Created for biologists, they generally use only technical terms These manuals and handbooks are usually quite lengthy Some field guides are called handbooks, but anything labelled a manual is probably going to be quite technical and may run to several volumes A flora is simply a manual or handbook of the plants of a region, and a fauna is the same thing for animals

Technical checklists are generally not very useful to the non-specialist, since they typically use scientific names and may not list common names at all They range from worldwide checklists to more limited geographical areas and generally include such information as sub-species, type specimens,

general distribution, and references to the original taxonomic descriptions They rarely include pictures or intelligible descriptions Checklists are most useful for the general public if cross-reference common and scientific name of an organism They can also be used to find out an organism’s habitat, so that a patron can look for further information in the correct regional source

Atlases provide a more technical answer to the question of location or range, giving more

detailed information on where sub-species and other taxonomic groups have been observed than do field guides They also usually have many maps (hence the name "atlas") There is generally little description

of either the habits or appearance of the species covered by the atlas, and the text is generally heavily laced with technical jargon

Keys are designed to help identify species or larger groups of organisms Most are dichotomous keys which offer two choices (leaves opposite, go to number 3; leaves alternate, go to number 4) They are found in both technical manuals and non-technical field guides Keys are most often found in field guides to plants, especially trees and mushrooms, although they may be found in other guides The main differences between technical and non-technical keys lie in the language used and the complexity of the key They generally require a certain amount of study to be used effectively, but they can be very useful

It may be easier to key out a leafless tree in winter than to identify it using the pictures in a traditional field guide, for instance

The Future of Field Guides

What can we expect of field guides in the future? More diversity, certainly The upsurge in popularity of these titles shows no signs of slowing as more and more publishers are expanding into this lucrative market There will be many more specialized guides as publishers divide up the market into smaller and smaller segments Small publishers have always found field guides a good source of income, and that will continue as well Heightened interest in ecotourism has already produced a booming market

in English language field guides for exotic p such as the Galapagos, Borneo, or Amazonia The demand for auxiliary aids (books on ecology, observing and locating wildlife, humorous guides, and so on) will also continue to expand

More audio and video products will compete for our attention and, with the growing popularity of home CD-ROM players, multimedia ventures are sure to follow Technology of all sorts will become

more important Even now, the Peterson CD version of Eastern and Central Bird Songs is searchable, so

the identification of a bird song is possible—if one has a portable CD player out in the field There are likely to be many more such technical wonders in the future, although the good old book will be around for a long time

References

Appelbaum, Judith "Pursuing the Wild Whatever" New York Times Book Review, September 25, 1983,

pp 39-40

"Armchair Birding: A Reading List." Sunset, February 1985, pp 70-72

Bishop, Tom "Choosing Your First Field Guide" WildBird, March 1990, pp 32-35

Brooks, Paul "A Field Guide to Roger Tory Peterson" Blair and Ketchum’s Country Journal, December

1985, pp 34-41

Chiang, Katherine "Field Guides for Insects." Reference Services Review, 12 (Winter 1984): 41-46 Dunne, Pete, Roger B Swain, and Richard LeBlond "A Guide to the Field Guides." Natural History,

May 1987, pp 62-69

"Getting Serious About Wildflowers?" Sunset, March 1989, pp 82-83

Kinch, Michael "Field Guide to Trees." Reference Services Review, 12 (Fall 1984): 35-40

Klaas, Janet "Birds of a Feather: A Covey of Field Guides." Reference Services Review, 12 (Summer

1984): 27-40

Potts, Lesley S "Guides for the Wildflower Pilgrim." Reference Services Review, 13 (Spring 1985):

29-35

Field Guides Mentioned

Audubon Society's Videoguide to the Birds of North America (videorecording) MasterVision How To

Series New York: MasterVision, 1985-1988 5 VHS videocassettes $135.00 (set); $29.95 per volume ISBN 55919-07 (v 1), 119-076-0 (v 2), 1 55919-077-9 (v 3), 1 55919-078-7 (v 4), 1-55919-079-5 (v 5)

Bull, John L and John Farrand The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds, Eastern

Region New York: Knopf, 1977 778 p ISBN 0-3944-1405-5

Choukas-Bradley, Melanie City of Trees: The Complete Field Guide to the Trees of Washington, D.C

Rev ed Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987 $14.95 394 p ISBN 0-80183320-5

Eastern and Central Bird Songs (sound recording) 3rd ed Peterson Field Guide Series Boston:

Houghton Mifflin, 1990 $39.95 (CD); $25.00 (2 cassettes); $19.95 (2 records) ISBN 0-39550-257-8 (CD); 0-39550-250-0 (cassettes); 0-395-34674-6 (records)

Farrand, ,John, ed The Audubon Society Master Guide to Birding 3 vol New York: Knopf, 1983 $49.35

(Set); $16.95 (v 1); $15.95 (v 2); $16.95 (v 3) ISBN 394-54121-9 ( ), 0394-53382-8 (v 1), 0-394-53384-4 (v 2), 0-394-53383-6 (v 3)

Greenberg, Idaz and Jerry Greenberg Waterproof Guide to Corals and Fishes of Florida, the Bahamas,

and the Caribbean Miami: Seahawk Press, 1977 $15.00 64 p ISBN 0-913008-07-9

Hamilton, William Roger The Henry Holt Guide to Minerals, Rocks, and Fossils New York: H Holt,

1989 $12.95 ISBN 0-80501118-8

Harrison, Colin A Field Guide to the Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds Brattleboro,

VI: Stephen Green Press, 1984 $19.95 416 p ISBN 0-828-90532-0

Harrison, Peter Seabirds: An Identification Guide Rev ed Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991 $24.45 432

p ISBN 0-395-60291-2

Knutson, Roger M Flattened Fauna: A Field Guide to Common Animals of Roads, Streets, and

Highways Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1987 $5.95 96 p ISBN 0-89815-186-4

MacGowan, Craig Mac's Field Guide to Northwestern Coastal Invertebrates Mac's field Guide Series

Seattle: Mountaineers, 1984 $4.95 1 card ISBN 0-898-86212-4

Mohlenbrock, Robert H Wildflowers: A Quick Identification Guide to the Wildflowers of North America

Field Guide Series New York: Macmillan, 1987 $9.95 208 p ISBN 0-02063420-X

Nagelkerken, Wilhelmus Petrus Coral Reef Fishes of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao Curacao: Island

Territory of Curacao, 1980 125 p

Peterson, Roger Tory A Field Guide to the Birds: A Completely New Guide to All the Birds of Eastern

and Central North America 4th ed Peterson Field Guide Series Boston: Houghton Mifflin,

1980 $21.45 cloth; $15 pa 384 p ISBN 0-395-26621-1 (cloth); 0-395-26619-X (pa)

Reilly, Edgar M and Gordon Carruth The Bird Watcher's Diary New York: Harper and Row, 1987

$12.95 218 p ISBN 0-06096092-2

Robbins, Chandler S Birds of North America Rev., exp ed Golden Field Guides Series New York:

Golden Press, 1983 $9.95 pa 360 p ISBN 0-307-37002-X (cloth), 0-3:3656-b (pa)

Sill, Ben L., Cathryn P Sill, and John C Sill A Field Guide to Little-Known and Seldom-Seen Birds of

North America Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, 1988 $8.95 73 p ISBN 0934601-58-5

Sutherland Struan K Venomous Creatures of Australia: A Field Guide with Notes on First Aid Rev ed

Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989 288 p

Toups, Judith A Birds and Birding on the Mississippi Gulf Coast Jackson: University Press of

Mississippi 1987 $19.95 304 p ISBN 0-87805-316-6

Udvardy, Miklos Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds, Western Region New York:

Knopf, 1977 855 p ISBN 03944-1410-1

Vitt, D.H., J.E Marsh, and R.B Bovey Mosses, Lichens, and Ferns of Northwestern North America

Seattle: University of Washington, 1989 $17.50 288 p ISBN 0-29S-96666-1

Walton, Richard K and Gordon Morrison A Field Guide to Endangered Wildlife Coloring Book Boston:

Houghton Mifflin, 1991 $4.95 64 p ISBN 0-395-57324-6

Watching Birds (videorecording) Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983 Beta or VHS $59.95 ISBN

0-395-34418-2 (Beta); 0-39534-417-4 (VHS)

Whitney, Stephen Western Forests Audubon Society Nature Guides Series New York: Knopf, 1985

$17.95 671 p ISBN 0-394-7327-1