EBERHART, George M(artin) 1950-

PERSONAL: Born June 6, 1950, in Hanover, PA; son of Richard C. (a craftsman) and Elizabeth (Lautz) Eberhart; married Jennifer Henderson, 1982. Education: Ohio State University, B.A., 1973; University of Chicago, M.L.S., 1976. Politics: Progressive. Hobbies and other interests: History, history of science, cryptozoology, UFOs, parapsychology, collecting postcards.

ADDRESSES: Home—Chicago, IL. Office—American Library Association, 50 East Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611.

CAREER: Journal of Law and Economics, Chicago, IL, bibliographic assistant, 1976-77; University of Kansas, Lawrence, serials and reference librarian at library of School of Law, 1977-80; American Library Association, Chicago, editor of College and Research Libraries News, 1980-90; American Bar Association, Chicago, managing editor of Criminal Justice, 1990-92; American Library Association, Chicago, associate editor of American Libraries, 1995-99, senior editor, 1999—.

MEMBER: American Library Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies was named outstanding academic book by Choice, 1980.

WRITINGS:

A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies: Primary Access to Observations of UFOs, Ghosts, and Other Mysterious Phenomena, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1980.

Monsters: A Guide to Information on Unaccounted for Creatures, including Bigfoot, Many Water Monsters, and Other Irregular Animals, Garland (New York, NY), 1983.

UFOs and the Extraterrestrial Contact Movement: A Bibliography, Garland (New York, NY), 1985.

(Editor) The Roswell Report: A Historical Perspective, J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (Chicago, IL), 1991.

(Compiler) The Whole Library Handbook: Current Data, Professional Advice, and Curiosa about Libraries and Library Services, American Library Association (Chicago, IL), 1991, 3rd edition published as The Whole Library Handbook 3: Current Data, Professional Advice, and Curiosa about Libraries and Library Services, 2000.

Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology, two volumes, ABC-Clio (Santa Barbara, CA), 2002.

Also contributor of articles and reviews to magazines, including American Libraries, Postcard Collector, and the International UFO Reporter.

WORK IN PROGRESS: The Whole Library Handbook, 4th edition.

SIDELIGHTS: George M. Eberhart is a librarian with a special interest in all things unusual, from UFOs and Bigfoot to ESP and ghosts. He is employed at the American Library Association, where he is currently editor of American Libraries and is the compiler of The Whole Library Handbook: Current Data, Professional Advice, and Curiosa about Libraries and Library Services and its subsequent editions. TheWhole Library Handbook is a guide for library professionals that contains "everything you ever wanted to know" about the profession and library facilities, according to Cathleen Bourdon in American Libraries.

Eberhart has used similar organizational skills in his books about animals not yet described scientifically (the science of cryptozoology), such as his Monsters: A Guide to Information on Unaccounted for Creatures, including Bigfoot, Many Water Monsters, and Other Irregular Animals and the more recent Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology. The latter is an encyclopedic guide to unusual animals, both real and imaginary, with Eberhart including over one thousand descriptive entries on everything from leprechauns and the Loch Ness monster to extremely rare but real species—or those once thought to be extinct that have since been rediscovered. A Booklist reviewer concluded that this "useful" guide would "be an asset to public, school, and academic libraries."

Eberhart once told CA: "I have long had an interest in events, behavior, conditions, or discoveries that do not conform to prevailing world views—this diverse set of scientific and historical mysteries I collectively call anomalies, and their study can be termed 'anomalistic science.' Anomalies include everything from lake monsters, bigfoot, ball lightning, earthquake luminescence, intra-Mercurial planets, falls of ice from the sky, the Bermuda Triangle, spontaneous human combustion, and cattle mutilations, through ESP, out-of-body experiences, dowsing, astrology, poltergeists, alchemy, biofeedback, neo-paganism, apparitions, spirit mediums, and haunted houses, to phantom panthers, UFO abductions, possession cases, medieval witchcraft, Atlantis, ancient cataclysms, megalithic paleoastronomy, mysterious artifacts, pre-Columbian discoveries of America, lost treasure, assassination conspiracies, the Bavarian Illuminati, and the identities of Kasper Hauser and Anastasia Romanov. And that's merely the beginning!

"One would think that such a vast field of scholarship would require minute specialization. The temptation to specialize certainly exists, although I have managed to avoid it by concentrating on the bibliography of anomalistic literature in general. The literature itself encourages a broad outlook: pick up any ten UFO books and you will find that many of the subjects I have listed above will be mentioned, at least in passing.

"In retrospect, I must say that reading and researching the literature of anomalies for the past forty years has been a very liberal education, since anomalies can occur in any branch of human knowledge. It certainly has given me a grasp on the interconnectedness of all things, an outlook that has proven beneficial in my career as librarian, researcher, and journalist."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Libraries, December, 1999, "AL Staff Changes," p. 8; May, 2000, Cathleen Bourdon, "Trivia Treasure Trove," p. 92.

Booklist, July, 2003, review of Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology, p. 1917.

Fate, April, 1981, George W. Earley, review of A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies: Primary Access to Observations of UFOs, Ghosts, and Other Mysterious Phenomena, p. 107; November, 1983, George W. Earley, review of Monsters: A Guide to Information on Unaccounted for Creatures, including Bigfoot, Many Water Monsters, and Other Irregular Animals, p. 107; September, 2003, Daniel Perez, review of Mysterious Creatures, p. 81.

Library Journal, September 15, 1980, Michael Schuyler, review of A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies, p. 1847; May 1, 1995, Wilda W. Williams, review of The Whole Library Handbook 2: Current Data, Professional Advice, and Curiosa about Libraries and Library Services, p. 140.

MUFON UFO Journal, October, 1980, Walt Andrus, review of A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies, p. 18.

New Scientist, July 26, 2003, John Bonner, "Beware the Death Worm," p. 49.

RQ, winter, 1980, review of A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies, p. 145.

School Library Journal, May, 1992, Sharon K. Snow, review of The Whole Library Handbook: Current Data, Professional Advice, and Curiosa about Libraries and Library Services, p. 50.

Skeptical Inquirer, July-August, 2003, Kendrick Frazier and Benjamin Radford, review of Mysterious Creatures, p. 53.

Whole Earth Review, fall, 1986, Ted Schultz, review of A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies, p. 50.

Wilson Library Bulletin, December, 1980, Charles Bunge, review of A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies, p. 299.