Source Book

Source Book was the most common name for a family of encyclopedias published in the 1910s through 1936.

Work began on the original project around 1910, when publisher H. N. Dixon commission editor William Francis Rocheleau to begin work on a new encyclopedia. Both of them had worked on the earlier Hill's Practical Reference Library, published in 1902 by Dixon and Hansen, Dixon as publisher and Rocheleau as "Revision editor".

Their new encyclopedia, Home and School Reference Work,was published in 1913 in 6 volumes under the imprint of the Dixon and Rucker Company. The work was considered poor by the standards of the time. The first five volumes contained encyclopedic material and the last was "Course of Study, Methods and Index". An expanded version was published in 1915 in 7 volumes, the last, again, being a study guide.

In 1922 the rights to the encyclopedia were sold to the Perpetual Encyclopedia Corporation who thoroughly revised the set and republished it in 1924 as the Source Book; an international encyclopedic authority written from the new world viewpoint. In this edition the first seven volumes were encyclopedic and the final three were study guides. The title was apparently chosen to capitalize on the success of the World Book Encyclopedia. Nevertheless it was reportedly a "very poor work".