This bibliography has grown from the 22 pages of its first edition in 1997 to the 100 pages of the current edition, and "Production" has been added as a new subject category. It covers the period from 1992-2001, and future editions will be limited to the most current ten-year period. Important older works not replaced by new editions are retained. Annotations are included, varying in length according to the importance of the work cited. This is an excellent aid for building and expanding book collections. With it, Fichtel lets those of us who aren't able to follow closely the ongoing publication of new books in the economics field participate in his work as subject bibliographer at the University Library in Passau. [sh/vh]

 

Rittershofer's dictionary has a long past; the first eight editions were published by Bundverlag between 1975 and 1997 under slightly varying titles, one of which, Das Lexikon Wirtschaft, Arbeit, Umwelt (Köln, 1991) was reviewed in IFB 94-1-125. The move to dtv was surely market-driven--dtv can reach the intended audience of business laymen better than the union-affiliated Bundverlag. The new title Wirtschaftslexikon (even in the presence of several competing volumes with the same title) and the expansion to 4,000 entries serve a similar purpose. It now has about the same number of entries as Uwe Schreiber's dictionary reviewed below (see RREA 7:213). Rittershofer covers economics and business equally. The "new economy" gives rise to entries on telecommunications and the Internet. Investors' rising interest in stocks and other securities is also considered. The author has retained his concept of a "problem-oriented" dictionary. Rittershofer refers to Germany in his explanations of such concepts as "unemployment," "national product," and "tax reform," as in the ones relating to economic and social law, so that his dictionary describes the economic situation of Germany in basic terms. These entries are often associated with graphics. Rittershofer offers more text than Schreiber, which can be seen by the differing number of pages alone; also, he has more detailed explanatory articles in proportion to those that merely define. [lf/gh]

 

Schreiber's Wirtschaftslexikon is the successor to his earlier dictionary (Handlexikon Wirtschaft: aktuelles Wissen für Praxis und Ausbildung in über 5000 Stichwörtern (see IFB 94-1-115). The publisher calls this new edition "revised and enlarged." Unfortunately the author does not detail the changes. Most apparent are the larger format and typeface; the reader's eyes will thank the publisher. The number of pages has increased from 496 to 528, but the number of entries has decreased by about 20 percent to about 4,000. Like its predecessor the Wirtschaftslexikon unites concepts from all areas of economics and defines them concisely and succinctly. Commercial law terms, which are important for everyday business, are relatively numerous. The abbreviations index helps to identify from what areas of law most of these entries come. Whether the choice of entries meets the user's needs and includes the most needed concepts depends on the user's interests. Schreiber's volume has an advantage of size over most economic dictionaries for the general public (though not over Ritterhofer's Wirtschaftslexikon, which is reviewed above (see RREA 7:212): a dictionary with 4,000 entries is much larger than the average for this market segment. [lf/gh]

 

This dictionary has been holding its own for many years against the two standard dictionaries of business and economics: the Gabler-Wirtschafts-Lexikon (13th ed., 1993) and Vahlens großes Wirtschaftslexikon (2d ed., 1993). It is shorter (4,000 entries vs. 28,000 and 16,000, respectively), but has a price the average person can afford. The ninth edition includes the latest developments in the field (e.g., the euro) and increases the emphasis on management. Nevertheless, the basic emphasis on national economics has been retained. An electronic test version of the dictionary, with approximately 1,300 entries, has been mounted in the "Cybercafé" section of the WISU Internet Service site at <http://www.wisu.de>. [lf/vh]

 

This is the CD-ROM version of the 15th edition of the Gabler-Wirtschafts-Lexikon, the largest German-language business dictionary. Its content is the same as the print version, (see IFB 94-1-106 and 107), and this review will assume familiarity with it. The retrieval software developed for the 15th edition CD works well with Windows. Marking, copying, and printing work flawlessly, as does the pulling up of Internet addresses. Graphics can be copied for further manipulation in other Windows applications. As is usual for these dictionary programs, one can search an index or the full text.

From the display, the user can follow convenient links to synonyms or related headwords. This edition has added the ability to show all headwords that cite the word in a cross-reference called the "Wi-Lex-Verweis-Index." Interestingly, the cross-references are ordered by theme. For instance, the headword Beschaffung [procurement] contains the information that there are citations to it from words under the themes of accountancy, trade, international business, logistics, and a number of others. Then the headwords containing the cross-references are listed. Oddly, the system of classification in evidence here is not accessible anywhere else in the dictionary. One cannot look at all the words listed under a particular theme.

The dictionary's interactive functionality allows the user to make individual notes on each entry. This feature, combined with the update service, which adds new entries and updates to the original ones, is a powerful tool. The user may add links to changes in the law, recent statistics and new business data into the entries, via the note function. All these updates will, however, become obsolete when the next CD edition comes out, since they cannot be transferred.

One should note several minor complaints. It would have been nice if the so-called major contributions had their own file, or were made available in some other way. As it is, one can only discover them by looking up their authors in the index. Speaking of names, the practice of listing only surnames in the index is unaesthetic. The ordering of hyphenated words is confusing; Marketing-Controlling precedes Marketing.

System requirements: PC with at least 80406-DX 66 MHz processor, at least 32 MB RAM, CD-ROM, 4x speed, monitor resolution at least 640 x 480 pixels, at least 256 colors, small fonts, Windows98/2000/NT. [lf/rb]

 

Duden's Lexikon der Wirtschaft offers basic information about business contexts and a wealth of detail. The typographically pleasing dictionary has two columns with colored column headings. It contains about 2,700 entries in 12 thematic chapters, with numerous accurate and well-chosen graphic and drawings. There are no personal entries; leading figures are written about in color-background boxes within entries describing their field of activity. The chapters use familiar academic categories (microeconomics, finance, etc.) as well as some categories of a more practical orientation (world of work, consumer protection, etc.). An introductory chapter defines elementary concepts. The categories assigned to some entries are hard to make sense of.

The strength of the thematic chapters is uneven and closely tied to the authors' areas of expertise, making the chapters on microeconomics, business politics, and some of the practical themes significantly more useful than those on, say, finance or macroeconomics. The book fulfills its subtitle's promise of "basic knowledge from A to Z," but because of its unevenness, it is better suited to non-economists and beginning undergraduates. Advanced students and economists will prefer the admittedly more expensive Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon (see RREA 7:215 above) or the various Kompendien from the Vahlen publishing house, not least because of the bibliographic references that are lacking in the Duden dictionary. [wf/rb]

 

With 4,200 entries, the Gabler-Marketing-Lexikon represents an effort to keep pace with the recent explosion in new marketing terminology. Only Wolfgang Koschnik's 6,000-item Lexikon Marketing has more entries, but with a 1997 publishing date is not as up-to-date. [lf/jb]

 

The Internet has added new concepts to the fields of marketing and advertising; lexicons that are five years old are essentially out-of-date. The Gabler-Lexikon Werbung presents both current and traditional terms. Technical articles (DVD, e-mail, etc.) are short; theoretical articles (emotional conditioning, consumer behavior, etc.) are longer, and are often subdivided and illustrated, with references for further reading. Altogether there are about 1,700 keywords and references. Although they contain some gaps and inconsistencies, the articles are accurate and well written. This book is a useful reference work on advertising in the age of the Internet. [lf/mrh]