More than a dozen years in the making, Reference Sources for Canadian Literary Studies offers the first full-scale bibliography of writing on and in the field of Canadian literary studies. Approximately one thousand annotated entries are arranged by reference genre (for example, encyclopedias, bibliographies, indexes), with sub-groupings related to literary genre (e.g. poetry, fiction, drama). The text is comprehensive, covering related material found in special collections and archives, periodicals, dissertations and theses, anthologies, literary histories, biography, directories, children's literature, translation, and web sites. Citations reflect library cataloguing standards and descriptive annotations outline the scope, content, interrelationships, and features of special interest of entries for literary studies scholars.

Joseph Jones uses an historical approach in his reverse chronological order, allowing users to begin with current material and to consider antecedents. Since few, if any, individual libraries hold all of the sources described, this reference work also serves as a means for scholars to evaluate the reference materials that are either readily available or awaiting discovery elsewhere. Coverage is exhaustive for English-language material and extensive for material in French and other languages, with editorial selectivity exercised more frequently as more general sources are described. Reference Sources for Canadian Literary Studies will be essential to all with a scholarly interest in Canadian literature.