Get documents about "Find Book Reviews A STEP-BY-STEP OVERVIEW
Document Sample
How-Do-I Find Book Reviews
A STEP-BY-STEP OVERVIEW
Wichita State University Libraries
Reference and Research Services
Left click on slide or use left/right arrow keys on your keyboard to advance from slide to slide in slide show
Fundamentals (Part 1)
• Here are general tips on finding book reviews:
– Book reviews are published in popular magazines or newspapers (e.g., Newsweek),
in specialist scholarly journals (e.g., American Journal of Sociology), and in special
book review periodicals (e.g., New York Review of Books).
– Find book reviews by consulting finding tools that index just book reviews or
periodical indexes that serve to identify all types of articles, including book reviews.
Certain periodical indexes are used to identify articles in popular magazines or
newspapers. Other periodical indexes are used to identify articles in specialist
scholarly journals. Indexes may be available online or in print.
– In addition to indexes, online full-text journals are a direct source for book reviews.
Such “e-journals” or searchable scanned images of print journals are, for purposes
here, grouped with online periodical indexes. (Online periodical indexes often lead
to full text; online full-text journals and online periodical indexes therefore share the
same features.)
– Reviews do not always appear in the same year as the book’s publication date. It is
often necessary to consult index volumes for two or more years following the
publication date. Remember also that the great majority of books never get
reviewed at all.
– Sometimes a new edition of a book will receive reviews, especially if there was a
lengthy period between editions.
Fundamentals (Part 2)
– It is useful to consult several reviews of a book to obtain a more balanced
evaluation.
– But note, if you want scholarly evaluative book reviews, omit reviews in American
Libraries, Booklist, Choice, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly. These do serve as
good brief statements of what a book is about.
– It is crucial to choose the appropriate index or indexes for finding reviews. For
example, it probably would not be helpful to seek the review of a book on
Renaissance art in an index to law journals.
– Know a much as possible about a book before seeking reviews. For example, is it a
current or historical work? Is it a popular or scholarly title? Having this knowledge
will help you choose the best electronic or print tools to locate reviews …
STEP 1: Get Basic Citation Information
• Get together the basic information that
identifies the book in question:
– Author’s name
– Title of the book
– Year it was published
To identify citation information about the book Nickel and Dimed, look at the
title page, if you have the book in hand. Library catalogs will also give you
the information:
Author: Ehrenreich, Barbara
Title: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Publication Date: 2001
STEP 2: Consult the Appropriate Index (Part 1)
• Depending on the year and subject matter
of the book for which you seek
reviews, there are a number of book
review finding tools.
• For older publications, it may be
necessary to consult a print book review
finding tool.
STEP 2: Consult the Appropriate Index (Part 2)
• Consider the tools listed on the main
How-Do-I Find Book Reviews page.
The next slide
addresses the
first indexes
found on this
list ...
STEP 2: Consult the Appropriate Index (Part 3)
• First consider the online Book Review
Digest. Then consider the print version of
Book Review Digest (which has coverage
back to 1905). Then consider Book Review
Index (which indexes many more sources).
And so on, down the list ...
ONLINE TOOLS
– Book Review Digest (covers 1983 to date)
Provides citations and abstracts for book reviews from 90 widely-circulated journals;
some links to full text of review.
PRINT TOOLS
– Book Review Digest (covers 1905 to 2002 in WSU’s holdings)
Reference Index Table 12 and older years in Reference Stacks (Z1219 .C96).
Lists and selectively excerpts reviews from same sources as online tool. Entries are
arranged by last name of author of book. Contains noteworthy subject index,
including, under the heading “Fiction,” a detailed listing by theme.
STEP 2: Consult the Appropriate Index (Part 4)
PRINT TOOLS (continued)
− Book Review Index (covers 1965 to date)
Reference Index Table 12 (Z1035 .A1 B6). Lists citations to reviews from over 400
scholarly journals, popular magazines, and newspapers.
STEP 2: Consult the Appropriate Index (Part 5)
• Note that WSU Libraries subscribes to
approximately 100 general and subject-
specific electronic databases.
These databases can help you find all kinds
of articles, including book reviews. Consider
the following online general tools:
– Expanded Academic ASAP (coverage as early as 1980 to date)
Provides citations and abstracts to over 900 wide-ranging scholarly journals, popular
magazines and newspapers; some links to full text of review.
Enter the query: review! and “NAME OF BOOK”.
STEP 2: Consult the Appropriate Index (Part 6)
ONLINE TOOLS (continued)
– JSTOR (coverage as early as 1800s and ending 3-5 years ago, with “rolling wall”)
Multi-discipline archive of scholarly journals. All articles are available as full-text
images. Coverage goes back to the first issues of the publications included in the
archive.
– LexisNexis Academic (coverage as early as 1970s to date)
Provides access to thousands of full-text news, business, and legal sources.
Coverage of publications varies.
Choose the “Guided News Search” interface. Under “Select a news category” select
“Arts & Sports News.” Then under “Select a news source” select
“Book, movie, music, & play reviews.” For “Search terms” enter the book’s
title, author, and/or subject. (Note that you can search for reviews in a specific
newspaper or journal by entering its name [e.g., The New York Times] in the last
search box, ”Search this publication title[s].”)
– Project Muse (coverage as early as 1993 to date)
Provides access to full-text journals in humanities and social sciences.
STEP 2: Consult the Appropriate Index (Part 7)
ONLINE TOOLS (continued)
– Readers’ Guide Abstracts (covers 1983 to date)
Indexes articles from popular general-interest magazines in the U.S. and Canada.
Search for the book’s author, title, and/or subject. Under “Document Type” select
“Book review.”
STEP 2: Consult the Appropriate Index (Part 8)
PRINT TOOLS
– New York Times Index (covers 1914 to 2001 in holdings here)
Reference Stacks (AI21 .N44). Look under the index entry “book reviews.”
– Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature (covers 1900 to 1994 in
WSU’s holdings) Reference Stacks (AI3 .R48). Indexes articles from popular,
general-interest periodicals, including same sources as online tool. Since 1976,
separate “Book Reviews” section at end of volume.
STEP 2: Consult the Appropriate Index (Part 9)
• Next consider the Humanities, Sciences, and
Social Sciences indexes, depending upon
the subject matter of the book for which you
seek reviews.
• The most important subject-specific book
review finding tools are given on the main
+o How-Do-I Find Book Reviews page
(http://library.wichita.edu/reference/howdoi/findbookreviews.htm)
STEP 3: Locate the Periodicals Containing
the Book Reviews You Identified
(Part 1)
• Unless you found direct links to the full-text
of the book reviews you located, you must
determine whether or not the library owns a
copy of the journal, magazine or newspaper
in which the review appears.
• You should have written down (or printed
out) the full citation for the book review. For
example:
Smith, Joan, reviewer. The Times Literary Supplement, no. 5203 (Dec. 27, 2002), p.9
STEP 3: Locate the Periodicals Containing
the Book Reviews You Identified
(Part 2)
• If you used an index such as the print Book
Review Digest, use the WSU Online Catalog
to look up the name of the periodical that
contains the book review.
In the example above, look up Times Literary
Supplement, selecting “Search by:” Journal
Title. (Be sure you do not include the initial article “The” in the title.)
STEP 3: Locate the Periodicals Containing
the Book Reviews You Identified
(Part 3)
• The Catalog indicates we have the periodical:
STEP 3: Locate the Periodicals Containing
the Book Reviews You Identified
(Part 4)
• Further, it indicates that we have the
particular issue (no. 5203) needed:
STEP 3: Locate the Periodicals Containing
the Book Reviews You Identified
(Part 5)
• If you used online Book Review Digest, you
could automatically execute the search in the
WSU Online Catalog:
Click here to execute the search
Finally … (Part 1)
• For further assistance with using the WSU
Online Catalog or any aspect of finding
book reviews, ask at the Ablah Library
Reference Desk.
Finally … (Part 2)
Source Material and Attributions
This tutorial incorporates both excerpts (without use of quotation marks) and
slightly modified text drawn from the following web pages developed by other
libraries:
“Book Reviews,” New York University Libraries
http://www.nyu.edu/research/rg35.html
“Finding Book Reviews,” University of California-Berkeley Libraries
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/BookReviews.html
“Finding Book Reviews,” Widener Library of the Harvard College Library
http://hcl.harvard.edu/widener/services/research/bookreviews/bookreview1a.html
“Finding Book Reviews, Research Tips,” Earlham Libraries
http://www.earlham.edu/~libr/courses/bookreviews.htm
“Find Book Reviews, How Do I …,“ Boston College Libraries
http://www.bc.edu/libraries/research/howdoi/s-findbookreviews/
TO RETURN TO THE MAIN How-Do-I FIND BOOK REVIEWS PAGE,
CLICK ON YOUR BROWSER’S BACK BUTTON
Related docs
