Week 15 Prompt Response

Week 5 Prompt Response



How do different types of reviews affect collection development?
It seems that the ebook only books would be overlooked if they were not reviewed in the professional journals as much, but that said I have patrons who come in and request titles that are in ebook only. They know their authors and what they want, so we purchase the titles for them, when possible. Fortunately the librarian who purchases for our library reads reviews, blogs (and reviews herself and blogs) and keeps herself immersed in the even lesser known authors and titles.

Are different types of reviews reliable? These 2 reviews would be helpful, they identify things that readers want to know - it's a clean romance, light and fluffy reading, not long - if I was considering purchasing or reading it, I may check a couple more reviews. These reviews are someone's opinion of the book. If there were 2 more they may vary widely in their opinion. I find them reliable because they aren't both overly positive.
How likely would I be to buy this book for my library?
From these reviews, I probably would not. There is nothing exceptional, that grabs me about the book from these reviews. Unless possibly a patron made a request.


How do you feel about the possibility of adding Angela's Ashes to your collection?
As I read the reviews, my personal opinion is not strong one way or the other. But when I look at the awards this title won, I may look at other reviews and see what we already have in our collection that is similar - or if I have a need for this title in my collection.

Is it fair one type of book is reviewed to death and other types of books get little to no coverage?
Fair? I'm not sure that it is fair, but it seems to be the reality.


How does this affect a library's collection?
If a library purchaser was only going by what is in the mainstream reviews, the collection would look like every other library's collection. I enjoy going to different communities' libraries and seeing how collections differ. Someone read a review and made a selection based on the review, or based on their readers' tastes. I recently visited 2 libraries not in our system and was excited to see books that my library system did not have in their collection. I came back and looked the items up and read the reviews, and wondered why my library not made those choices. I think to have a well-balanced collection you have to have a variety of reviewers. Sometimes other librarians will tell me of a blog or podcast they are hearing great reviews on. If I'm only seeing one type of book reviewed, it's my job to dig and find others.


How do you feel about review sources that won't print negative reviews?
I don't have an issue with review sources that won't print negative reviews because there are other review sources available. Before this course, I did not know Booklist did not print negative reviews. But I usually look at several reviews of an item, so I can compare the reviews.


Do you think that's appropriate?
I think it is appropriate  because people can aways check other sources for more reviews to compare.  Even professional reviews are an opinion, so I don't necessarily only use those reviews. However, when I use reviews from Amazon and Goodreads, if everything is glowing or everything is negative I keep reading until I come to an opposing review. Some of the Amazon reviews seem like they were solicited or may have been written by the same person.

How do you feel about reviews for personal reading and what are some of your favorite review sources? For my personal reading I do not intentionally seek out professional reviews. I take patron's reviews, I may choose a book after reading a review on Amazon or Goodreads or Publishers Weekly. I mostly use professional reviews when I am selecting books for book discussions. I use several different sources - I will use Publisher's Weekly, Book list,  Kirkus also Goodreads and Amazon. I like to read negative and positive reviews so I can get a balanced view of the resource I am considering.