LibGuides: Funeral Services : Books & Ebooks

Ebook Databases

Search for Death, Grief, Bereavement, Funeral Customs, Cremation, etc.

Ebook Central This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text e-books in a wide range of subject areas along with tools to find, use, and manage the information.
For help, see the Quick Start Guide.
eBooks on EBSCOhost This link opens in a new window
Search and view the full text of eBooks.
Search and view the full text of eBooks by keyword search or browsing categories, highlights, or featured books.
Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Online reference library that provides access to a growing selection of reference books.
Online reference library that provides access to a growing selection of reference books. Includes encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, books of quotations, and a range of subject-specific titles from art to accountancy and literature to law. Credo Reference generates a network of cross-references that provide an easy-to-follow trail to related information contained anywhere within the library.

Credo Reference Subject Guides
Sage Knowledge This link opens in a new window
Reference books including social science, green issues, and criminal justice.
SAGE Knowledge provides an interface to search SAGE Book, Business Case, Reference, and Video titles in the social sciences. Links to SAGE Journals and SAGE Research Methods are provided through a "SAGE Recommends" widget.

PDF Guide

Subject Encyclopedias, ebooks and print

Encyclopedias provide a basic understanding or overview of entries. A select list of titles for background reading:

Dying, Death and Grief: Working with Adult Bereavement
Available in full text in Sage Knowledge database. Dying, Death and Grief is written for anyone who provides support to adults following bereavement. The author explains the theoretical background to attachment and loss and the core skills needed to support people who have been bereaved. Case studies and personal accounts are included to illustrate key points and exercises are provided to help you examine your own experiences and attitudes in relation to loss. The book also takes into account topics that are frequently overlooked in other texts such as sexuality, spiritual responses to loss, cultural influences and diversity, as well as the nature of chronic and disenfranchised grief.
Encyclopedia of Cremation
The first major reference resource focused on cremation. Spanning many world cultures it documents regional histories, ideological movements and leading individuals that fostered cremation whilst also presenting cremation as a universal practice. Tracing ancient and classical cremation sites, historical and contemporary cremation processes and procedures of both scientific and legal kind, the encyclopedia also includes sections on specific cremation rituals, architecture, art and text. Ebook in Credo Reference database.
Encyclopedia of Death & the Human Experience by edited by Clifton D. Bryant, Dennis L. Peck.
Available in full text in Sage Knowledge database. This resource addresses the traditional death and dying–related topics but also presents a unique focus on the human experience to create a new dimension to the study of death and dying. With more than 300 entries, the Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience includes the complex cultural beliefs and traditions and the institutionalized social rituals that surround dying and death, as well as the array of emotional responses relating to bereavement, grieving, and mourning.
The Encyclopedia of Death and Dying by Robert C. Salinas; Peter S. Winn
ISBN: 0816053766
Call Number: 306.903 C344e
2005 (Reference at Florissant Valley and Meramec; Stacks at Forest Park)
Handbook of Death & Dying by Clifton D. Bryant, editor in chief
Call Number: Reference 306.9 H236 2003 (Florissant Valley, Forest Park, and Meramec)
More than 100 scholars contributed to this carefully researched, well-organized, informative, and multi-disciplinary source on death studies. Volume 1, "The Presence of Death," examines the cultural, historical, and societal frameworks of death, such as the universal fear of death, spirituality and various religions, the legal definition of death, suicide, and capital punishment. Volume 2, "The Response to Death," covers such topics as rites and ceremonies, grief and bereavement, and legal matters after death. --"The Top 20 Reference Titles of the Year," American Libraries, May 2004

The Handbook of Death of Dying is also available as an ebook in the Sage Knowledge database.

Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying by Robert Kastenbaum, editor in chief
Call Number: Reference 306.9 M167
2003 (Forest Park only) - Covering all aspects of death and dying -- biological, medical, social, sociological, psychological, religious, and philosophical -- the 2-vol. Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying also provides a deep historical and cross-cultural perspective through the ages.

The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying is also available as an ebook in the Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) database.

Select Ebook Titles, STLCC Libraries

Death, Dying, and Bereavement Around the World : Theories, Varied Views and Customs by Eyetsemitan, Frank E. (2021)
This book evaluates existing theories, concepts, and models with the practices of death, dying and bereavement from different societies around the world. The differences in various belief systems and how these influence death, dying and bereavement practices are highlighted, including Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Ancestor worship, Afro-Brazilian religions, the belief systems of Native Indians, the Maoris of New Zealand and others. These belief systems will contribute to a better understanding of the existing models of death, dying and bereavement that are examined. An overview of countries in different continents is also provided.
The Undertaker: A Memoir of the First Woman Funeral Director in the Core of Brooklyn by Del, Gaudio, Laura (2019)
Laura Del Gaudio's lively story of learning the family business from under the kitchen table as a child. It is how she learned empathy in the face of unspeakable traumas while understanding the impact of trauma herself. Licensed at the age of 21, she became the 3rd generation in the family business which was located at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge.
The Untold Story of Funeral Trains by Wheatley, Nicolas (2020)
This new history reveals the previously untold story of why and how trains have been used to transport the dead, enabling their burial in a place of significance to the bereaved. Profusely illustrated with many images, some never previously published, Nicolas Wheatley’s work details how the mainline railways carried out this important yet often hidden work from the Victorian age to the 1980s, as well as how ceremonial funeral transport continues on heritage railways today.From royalty, aristocrats and other VIPs (including Sir Winston Churchill and the Unknown Warrior) to victims of accidents and ordinary people, Final Journey explores the way in which these people travelled for the last time by train before being laid to rest.

Select Print Titles

Subject heading in Classic Catalog:

Death -- Social aspects.

Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve by Sandra M. Gilbert.
Call Number: 155.937 G466d FP, FV, M-Stacks
1. Arranging my mourning: five meditations on the psychology of grief -- Death opens -- Widow -- Yahrzeit -- E-mail to the dead -- Writing wrong -- 2: History makes death: how the twentieth century reshaped dying and mourning -- Expiration/termination -- Technologies of death -- Technologies of dying -- A day in the death of ... -- Millennial mourning -- 3: The handbook of heartbreak: contemporary elegy and lamentation -- On the beach with Sylvia Plath -- Was the nineteenth century different, and luckier? -- "Rats' alley" and the death of pastoral -- Monsters of elegy -- Apocalypse now (and then).
Death, Mourning, and Burial: A Cross-Cultural Reader
Call Number: 393 D285, Forest Park and Florissant Valley stacks
edited by Antonius C.G.M. Robben
Disposal of the dead by Diane Andrews Henningfield, editor. (2009)
Call Number: 393.9 D6128, FP-Stacks
The At Issue series includes a wide range of opinion on a single controversial subject. Each volume includes primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives-eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials and many others. Extensive bibliographies and annotated lists of relevant organizations to contact offer a gateway to future research.
The Funeral Kit: Mortuary Practices in the Archaeological Record by Jill L. Baker
Publication Date: 2012-01-15
Call number: 393 B1678f (Forest Park and Florissant Valley stacks)
Funerals of the Famous.
Call Number: 393.93 F9818 (7 vols.) FP stacks
The Good Funeral by Thomas G. Long; Thomas Lynch
Publication Date: 2013-09-06
Call number: 393.097 L8497g (Forest Park stacks)
Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner City Funeral Home by Sheri Booker.
Call Number: 338.473 B72455n, Forest Park and Florissant Valley stacks
Publication Date: 2013
Reimagining Death: Stories and Practical Wisdom for Home Funerals and Green Burials by Herring, Lucinda (2019)
Call Number: 393.9 H5674r, Meramec-Stacks

About Books

Reference Books

Reference Books are the best places to find concise summaries and background information on a topic. Reference books cannot be checked out of the library. Some of them are available as databases or ebooks.

Circulating Books

Circulating books (books you can check out) may also provide summaries and background information, but usually go into greater depth about a topic.

Using Books for Research

Using books for research does not always mean that you need to read the entire book.

Use the table of contents and the index to find where in a book information about your topic is located.
The introduction to a book may be a good place to find background information on the topic the book is about.
You should read enough of a book or chapter to understand what an author is saying and quote her correctly.
Sometimes chapters in books are complete works written by different authors, making them ideal for research.

eBook: Youth and Funerals, Funeral Service Foundation

Youth and Funerals: Understanding the important role funerals and memorialization play in the lives of youth.
ebook, freely downloadable in .pdf format

Keyword Searching

Some examples of keyword searches include

grief AND customs
death AND attitude AND funeral*
funeral AND attitude*
psycholog* AND death
embalming

NOTE: The asterisk (*) truncates a term and will retrieve all forms of the word that follow the truncation symbol. For example, psycholog* will retrieve psychology, psychologist, psychological, etc. The asterisk can also be used as a wildcard for an unknown letter, as in cemet*ry, etc.

Subject Searching

Results from your keyword searches will help you identify appropriate subject headings. Below are just a few examples of subject headings you will find in the STLCC Catalog.

Because most library users are not familiar with Library of Congress Subject Headings, it is often a good idea to begin with a keyword search, but this is a list of assigned subjects that may be useful:

Funeral Services

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