Book Reviews : The Harbrace Office Handbook, Sixth Edition. Doris H. Whaten and Brian G. Wilson. Fort Worth, Texas: The Dryden Press/Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1996, 435 pages

Abstract

THE HARCOURT BRACE Office Handbook has served, in one form or another, as a recognized reference source for office workers and others for over twenty-five years. Its recent release in its Sixth Edition continues in that tradition, but it adds material to reflect both the changing world of business communication and, accordingly, the changing needs of business writers.As one might expect, changes and additions to the Sixth Edition are several, and in some cases, represent only extensions or refinements of material familiar to anyone who has used the previous edition. Thus, readers will continue to find sections on electronic communication, including word processing, records management, report writing, forms of address, a glossary, and information on spelling.However, in almost every case, material has been updated or heavily revised. For example, the first chapter, &dquo;Electronic Equipment,&dquo; has been brought up to date, at least to the date of this edition. Unfortunately, few publications, save online reviews, would be able to remain current in this area for long. And this handbook is no exception. Even in the brief time since its release, much has changed in office technology. Thus, inattention to even the most critical developments, such as the advent of corporate intranets, and the heavy reliance on hypertext and HTML, can be forgiven for this reason. This must also be true of the authors' treatment of reference sources in one of the appendixes. While they give careful attention to compiling several lists of computer resources, dictionaries, directo-