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Ron Bremer's massive Compendium of Historical Sources, published originally in 1983 and updated in 1998, is one of the greatest textbooks in all of American genealogy. Consisting of twenty-nine chapters and nearly 1,000 pages, the Compendium covers all the topics that are of greatest importance to the genealogist and a number that are not treated in other textbooks. Since the author's emphasis is on the nature and location of original source records, the reader will find discrete, lengthy chapters on land records, vital records, census records, records of immigration and naturalization, church records, and military records. Acquiring records also presupposes some knowledge of the places in which they are housed, and these places are covered in chapters on libraries and other repositories in general and in chapters devoted to the leading institutions in the field: the LDS Library, Library of Congress, National Archives, national and state record centers, and museums. Still other chapters cover the records of fraternal societies, insurance companies, railroads, and the very important record inventories of the Depression Era Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.).