Week Five Prompt

Hope you are getting your reviews read and written. For this week's prompt, I want to start a conversation about the different types of reviews. Different publications review different types of books and they allow different types of conversations. For example, Booklist will not publish negative reviews, while, as you have all seen, Kirkus has no problems with it. Ebook only books, which are increasingly popular (especially in the romance genre) see little to no reviews in professional publications unless they have a big name author, and then still it's usually only RT Reviews (formally Romantic Times) or other genre heavy publications. How does this affect collection development?

First, I have to say, it’s a good thing all of the review sites and magazines don’t review everything alike because we would all get the same review over and over. I’m sure not everyone is going to find every book in the review source they want. That said, I think librarians have learned to adapt to how and where books are reviewed and go to that source if they are selecting that genre.

Ebook only books make us work a little harder but if there isn’t a proper review, one can always check out Amazon reviews if they are so inclined to consider buying that ebook; even though these are not professional reviews (although some may be), they will give the selector an idea of the book. So I think collection development is affected but how much depends on the librarian’s efforts. If they use their resources well, the collection won’t be too affected but if they don’t make an effort to find these hard-to-find reviews, the collection will suffer.

I have posted two more documents in the week five files. One is two reviews of an ebook only romantic suspense novel, one from a blog and one from amazon. Look over the reviews - do you feel they are both reliable? How likely would you be to buy this book for your library? Is this ebook even romantic suspense?

So I went to Amazon to see this particular review and it now has a “Top 1000 Reviewer” badge next to it. While I normally would think this is not a reliable review, I have to stop and think that this person has reviewed quite a lot on Amazon and may know a thing or two about romantic ebooks. I think if you have patrons who want a certain genre and you go to Amazon to check out the reviews, you might want to check how many other reviews they have written.

The blog review is, of course, much more professional –looking with the slick layout and all the correct information. How much more reliable is it really though? Anyone can have a blog just as anyone can write a review for Amazon. I think the blog would be chosen over the Amazon review because of the appearance but what the blog review is saying is not much different than what the Amazon review states.

The other document contains some reviews of Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt, an incredibly popular memoir. These reviews are all from professional publications, feel free to find more on your own I just nabbed a few from the Book Review Digest database for you. How do these reviews make you feel about the possibility of adding Angela's Ashes to your collection?

These reviews definitely make me want to add this to my collection – as I’m trying to forget how good this book was when I read it years ago to be impartial. First off, all of the reviews describe an incredibly interesting true story of triumph over horrible conditions – who wouldn’t want to read that? Also, when reviews include statements such as “extraordinary work in every way” (Kirkus), “almost impossible to put down” (Library Journal), “Expect demand” (Booklist) and “A vivid, wonderfully readable memoir” (School Library Journal), how could you not want this in your collection? These reviews make me feel like I want to read it again!

Do you think it's fair that one type of book is reviewed to death and other types of books get little to no coverage? How does this affect a library's collection?  And how do you feel about review sources that won't print negative content? Do you think that's appropriate? If you buy for your library, how often do you use reviews to make your decisions? If not, how do you feel about reviews for personal reading, and what are some of your favorite review sources?

I don’t necessarily think one type of book getting all the reviews is fair but I do think that these books are usually what is selling and being read the most so everyone is looking  for that review – which pushes out a review of another type of book. Again, if the selector is good, they will find ways to make up for that lack of coverage; if not, you will likely have a collection that is totally mainstream and nothing outside of the box.

On the one hand, I think it’s nice that there are no negative reviews in Kirkus; on the other hand, I may like that book that someone else doesn’t. In fact, that is usually the case. I think sources that don’t print negative content 1) will not have a problem with any authors or publishers and 2) don’t like to use up space with reviews that are negative but would rather showcase the positive reviews of books. We as selectors can still determine if sources such as Kirkus think less of these titles because they haven’t been printed.

I love reading book reviews. I am on many email lists such as Barnes and Noble, Penguin and Good Reads. At work, it’s Library Journal, Word and Film and Overdrive. I’m always looking for new sources.