Week 5 Prompt: Book Review Discussion

Regarding the fact that certain types of books are “reviewed to death” (Cataldi, 2018), I’m not sure whether this is fair or whether changes should be made to the process.  I imagine there aren’t enough book reviewers to review every book as they’re released, so how do review publications choose which ones to highlight?  They probably review the books that they think will generate the most “buzz” in the reader community.  Of course, review publications in turn create buzz with their reviews.  Reading all those Angela’s Ashes reviews certainly made me want to read the book, and I’d probably want to add it to my library’s collection, if I had the authority to do so.

Book review publications like Booklist which don’t publish negative reviews, and publications like Kirkus that have no problem doing so, both have their benefits and drawbacks.  One could argue that Kirkus reviews give a more honest take on the reader’s experience with said book, but on the other hand, the review is just one person’s opinion.  Not every book will be everyone’s cup of tea, and what annoys one person could be easily overlooked – or even enjoyed – by another.  If a collection development librarian only looked at publications which allow negative reviews, they might miss an opportunity to purchase a book that many of their patrons would enjoy.  By that same token, publications that don’t use negative reviews could be considered misleading by potentially neglecting to warn the reader of flaws that could reduce the enjoyment of said book, but by focusing on the positive, the librarian who knows their patrons’ preferences could more easily keep an open mind when considering if the local population would enjoy the title in question.

This all shows that libraries’ collection development librarians, to offer a diverse collection to their patrons (a book for every reader! [Ranganathan, 1931, p. 75]), must subscribe to a variety of book review providers, including genre-heavy publications like RT Reviews.  Librarians might also regularly check online (amateur/layperson) reviews, on Goodreads and Amazon for example.  This could expose them to books - print AND e-book - that aren’t getting mainstream media attention.  Wouldn’t it be great if Goodreads offered an option to see recent book reviews from users in a certain geographic area, so that librarians could see trends in their local community?

References

Cataldi, E.  (2018).  Week five prompt.  Readers’ Advisory.  Retrieved from:  http://readersadvisoryblog.blogspot.com/2018/02/week-five-prompt.html

Ranganathan, S. R.  (1931).  The five laws of library science.  Madras, India: Madras Library Association.