Find Book Reviews A STEPBYSTEP OVERVIEW

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Find Book Reviews A STEP-BY-STEP OVERVIEW
How-Do-I

• Wichita State University Libraries
• Reference and Research Services

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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 books 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.

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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

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STEP 1 Get Basic Citation Information

• Get together the basic information that
  identifies the book in question
• Authors 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

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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.

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STEP 2 Consult the Appropriate Index (Part 2)

• Consider the tools listed on the main
  Find Book Reviews page.

How-Do-I
The next slide addresses the first indexes found
on this list ...
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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 WSUs
  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.

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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.

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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.

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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 books 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 titles.)
• Project Muse (coverage as early as 1993 to
  date)Provides access to full-text journals in
  humanities and social sciences.

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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 books author, title,
  and/or subject. Under Document Type select
  Book review.

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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 WSUs 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.

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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 Find Book Reviews
  page (http//library.wichita.edu/reference/howdoi
  /findbookreviews.htm)

How-Do-I
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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
  exampleSmith, Joan, reviewer. The Times
  Literary Supplement, no. 5203 (Dec. 27, 2002), p.9

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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.)

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STEP 3 Locate the Periodicals Containing
the Book Reviews You Identified
(Part 3)

• The Catalog indicates we have the periodical

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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

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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
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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.

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Finally (Part 2)

• Source Material and AttributionsThis tutorial
  incorporates both excerpts (without use of
  quotation marks) and slightly modified text drawn
  from the following web pages developed by other
  librariesBook 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/Boo
  kReviews.html Finding Book Reviews, Widener
  Library of the Harvard College Library
  http//hcl.harvard.edu/widener/services/research/b
  ookreviews/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/r
  esearch/howdoi/s-findbookreviews/

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