[earthicus]

I agree with you that academic summary works are probably the best way for a non-researcher to learn what exists, what's known (and what isn't). Since i've never seen them discussed or referenced on this website, let me also point out the existence of academic encyclopedias, such as the Springer encyclopedia of algoriths[1] (each entry is essentially a slightly more pedagogical review article about a subfield or important problem in CS, along with loads of references to the literature for digging deeper), and the delightful encyclopedia of distances [2](800 pages long!). A couple others i've seen that may be of interest to this audience are the encyclopedia of systems and control[3], and the encyclopedia of unconventional computing[4]

Unfortunately some of these are absurdly expensive, so if you don't want to go the piracy route the cheapest way to access them is to get a membership to your local public university's library system, which in the US typically costs like $100 a year or something.

[1] https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-1-4939-2...

[2] https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-662-52844-0

[3] https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-3-030-44...

[4] https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-1-4939-6...