“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?”
The
trend with e-books becoming very popular with little to no views will encourage
librarians to disregard reviews when collecting e-books for a library’s
electronic collection of books. The trend may also confuse librarians that rely
on the utilization of professional reviews to include titles within a library’s
collection; the librarians may accidently miss excellently written or popular
e-books and may not incorporate those e-books into the library’s electronic
collection of items.
The trend also depicts a disregard for professional reviews
among users. So, librarians may also be encouraged to disregard professional
reviews if they feel that readers only desire to read a book due to popular
demand and not due to critical analysis. Because of this, some librarians may
select books for the library collection that have not been professionally
reviewed in order to make the collection more appealing to ordinary readers.
“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?”
In terms of reviewing an actual item, I believe that both of
the reviews are reliable, since both of the reviewers became emotionally involved
in describing the content of the book (Ebook
Only Romantic Suspense Novel.docx, n.d, n.p.). However, the reviews are not
professionally written, and they do not identify distinct qualities of the book
(Ebook Only Romantic Suspense Novel.docx,
n.d, n.p.). The reviews provide a brief summary or describe key moments from
the book, which is not beneficial towards understanding what distinct aspects
that the book exhibits or what specific genre the book is (Ebook Only Romantic Suspense Novel.docx, n.d, n.p.). In that sense,
the reviews are not very reliable for librarians to use to determine if an item
is worth purchasing for a library’s collection. It is highly unlikely that I would buy the book due to the
poor quality of the reviews and the lack of content described in those reviews.
Reviews need to be professionally constructed and descriptive in order be an
adequate guideline for purchasing materials for a library’s collection. The two
examples that were provided poorly addressed the content of the books and did
not identify a great number of specific qualities of the books (Ebook Only Romantic Suspense Novel.docx,
n.d, n.p.). So, I would not buy the book due to the information that is presented
in the reviews, since the book could end up to be quite boring and unsatisfying
for users to read.
“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 strongly encourage
me to add a copy of Angela’s Ashes to
my library collection. The reviews are from websites that display professionally
written reviews on books; these websites include: the Kirkus Review website,
the Library Journal Review website, the Booklist Review website, and the School
Library Journal Review website (Angela
Ashes Reviews.docx, n.d., n.p.). All of the reviews are descriptive and
depict the most relevant qualities from Angela’s
Ashes (Angela Ashes Reviews.docx,
n.d., n.p.). The reviews are also bold enough to describe the negative qualities
of Angela’s Ashes, and they reveal how
the author of Angela’s Ashes depicts
the darker qualities of the novel, such as sickness and poverty (Angela Ashes Reviews.docx, n.d., n.p.). This
is a positive aspect, since the reviews are being honest and are informing
readers of the content in Angela’s Ashes
(Angela Ashes Reviews.docx, n.d.,
n.p.). So, I feel that the reviews are highly reliable, and I believe that the
reviews’ claims about the content of Angela’s
Ashes to be accurate. Therefore, I will include Angela’s Ashes in a library collection based on this information.
“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?”
I don’t believe that it’s fair that books that are reviewed
to death have been better marketed to the public in some fashion. For instance,
the books could have a sudden surge in popularity due to a viral trend of
recognition on the internet or have been supported with a great deal of funding
towards marketing the books. In other words, books are reviewed to death
because of the high degree of accessibility and persuasive rhetoric. Also, because
of this principle of great accessibility or recognition, some novels with
excellent plots are snubbed in favor of publications that were adequately marketed.
In addition, this is not fair that some books are extensively reviewed, since
individuals will likely gain a false impression of these books from the wide
range of opinions from professional reviewers. In reality, a person reading a
plot is the one who decides if a book is a worthwhile read or not; the quality
of a book in one’s mind does not depend on the opinions of professional
critics.
“How
does this affect a library's collection?”
A library’s collection is greatly
impacted by the action of extensively reviewing some books while ignoring other
books. Librarians will more likely select books that have been frequently
reviewed by both professionals and ordinary individuals for their collection,
since the librarians may believe that the books are popular or exhibit a high
quality of writing. So, a library’s collection will contain less titles that
are obscure or not known by a great percentage of the public community, since
those novels will not have received many reviews from critics and regular individuals.
The library collection may also exhibit less titles of high quality from
obscure or relatively unknown titles, which would diminish the library
collection’s overall level of quality and diversity.
“And
how do you feel about review sources that won't print negative content?”
I feel that review sources should be critical of the positive
and negative aspects of a book. Fictional books aren’t perfect, and it’s
beneficial to analyze the separate values of the elements of books. Also,
individual persons have different feelings about books. Some people may
immensely enjoy a book while others despise it. In the end, a book is just a
book. One should read it for the experience. Reviews are present to inform an audience
what is the most common or most likely response about certain elements of a
book, and the reviews also identify traits that the book exhibits. However, an
individual is responsible for his own enjoyment of a novel.
“Do
you think that's appropriate?”
I
don’t believe that it’s appropriate for review sources to not print out
negative content. I think that it’s a bit lazy that review sources won’t print
out negative content in order to be more appealing to readers. I strongly feel
that review sources should be considerate of the negative aspects of books to
reveal the books’ weaknesses to readers and to allow readers to compare the
books to other novels. I also think that it isn’t appropriate for reviews to
avoid mentioning the negative content because writing about the negative
content in the books may warn readers if there is something that they dislike
or despise in the reviewed books.
“If
you buy for your library, how often do you use reviews to make your decisions?”
I do not purchase items for my library, which is the Allen County
Public Library. So, this question does not apply to me.
“If
not, how do you feel about reviews for personal reading, and what are some of
your favorite review sources?”
I personally feel that reviews for
personal reading are quite beneficial towards making a decision to select
certain titles for reading. However, I believe that I should determine if a
book is excellent by reading it on my own. I also think that it’s often
unnecessary to rely on reviews, since they can’t judge if a person will
actually enjoy any of the components of a novel.
Some of my favorite review sources are the Goodreads website,
which exhibits reviews for novels, and Amazon’s website, which contains the
reviews for books. I appreciate how the Goodreads website lists casual reviews
from users (Goodreads Inc, 2018, n.p.). These users write extensively and in an
informative manner, so I can comprehend the content of the users’ reviews in a sufficient
manner (Goodreads Inc, 2018, n.p.). Because I can understand the reviews to an
adequate degree, I can make decent choices towards the selection of specific
novels. In addition, I favor how Amazon’s website lists user reviews for books (Amazon.com,
2018, n.p.). While I feel that more reviews on the Amazon website are
unreliable and biased than the Goodreads website, I still find the reviews to
be a great source of information towards discovering a worthwhile novel to read
(Amazon.com, 2018, n.p.). Also, I will utilize the Wikipedia website for
collecting short snippets of critics’ thoughts towards certain books, although
the Wikipedia website is probably not considered an official website for review
sources (Wikipedia, n.d, n.p.). However, I primarily don’t use other sources
for books besides the Goodreads website, the Amazon website, and the Wikipedia
website. These websites typically satisfy my need for knowledge about the
content of books, so I don’t usually look for other review sources or websites.
References
and Resources Used:
Amazon.com. (2018). To Reign in Hell: A Novel. Retrieved
from
https://www.amazon.com/Reign-Hell-Novel-Steven-Brust/dp/0312870493
Angela
Ashes Reviews.docx. (n.d.). Angela Ashes Reviews.docx [PDF file]. Retrieved
from
https://iu.instructure.com/courses/1702577/files/folder/Week%205?preview=75529651
Ebook
Only Romantic Suspense Novel.docx. (n.d). Ebook Only Romantic Suspense
Novel.docx
[PDF file].
Retrieved from https://iu.instructure.com/courses/1702577/files/folder/Week%205?preview=75529649
Goodreads Inc. (2018). Bloodline (Star Wars Disney Canon Novel).
Retrieved from
Wikipedia. (n.d). Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia.
Retrieved from https://www.wikipedia.org/
Excellent prompt response! You did a wonderful job responding to each of the questions and using resources and intuition to answer them. Full points!
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