Finding Book Reviews at Benner Library

General review sources | Specialized review sources | Full-text sources | Search tips

Introduction

There are several ways to go about finding book reviews here at the Library. There is the 'print' route, which involves using the "general book review resources." These are real life volumes that index abstracts of book reviews from various sources. They are housed behind the two copiers by the staircase to the lower level. The 'electronic' route utilizes our online databases to locate full book reviews and abstracts (sections 3 and 4).

"I can't find a book review for my source"

  • Book reviews may not be available for a given book for various reasons.
  • It is possible that the book you are looking for is too recently published to have been reviewed.
  • The book could also be marginal for whatever reason (i.e. poor scholarship, unknown author, publisher etc.). If the book is very scholary it could evade the more general book review sources (i.e. the Times, Booklist, etc.). In this case, consult our more scholarly databases such as Academic Search Elite, and especially JSTOR. Most dissertations are not reviewed, since they are not formally published. There are some scholarly sources that are very narrowly focused within a given discipline and will not be reviewed, however this is not a general rule.
  • A book without a review is not necessarily indicative of its worth (though it could be). However, if a review is necessary in order to use the book, you may have to find another source, either within our Library or elsewhere through Interlibrary Loan.

1.

Record essential information about the book

Title ______________________________________
Author ______________________________________
Copyright/publication date ______________________________________

2.

Consult general book review resources

Introduction

Finding book reviews by using our print resources can be tricky. The volumes are organized by when the review was published. Therefore, the book's copyright date is not directly connected to the available reviews. Just because a book was published in 2000, doesn't mean that the book reviews for it will be availiable during the 2000 year edition of the Book Review Digest, etc.. It is helpful to use the "cumulated index" volumes that span a longer period of time to find the review that you want. Some of the Cumulated Index (the more recent ones) index the title and the author of the book reviewed. For example, if I was looking for a review on Lenard Cohen's 1993 book Broken Bonds, I would first refer to the 1985-1994 Author/Title Index and simply look up his name--Cohen, Lenard. Or I could look up Broken Bonds. Once I found that, it would tell me which year volume I could find the reviews in. In this case, it is 1994. I would then open up the 1994 volume and look up Cohen, Lenard and would find the reviews for the book.

search tips Book Review Digest: citations and abstracts
Print: 1905-present
Online: 1983-present
Subjects: English language fiction and non-fiction books (except textbooks, government publications, and technical books in law and the sciences). To be included a nonfiction book must have been reviewed 2+ times in selected periodicals. Fiction books have been reviewed 3+ times.

Choice Reviews Online:
Print: 03/1964-present
Online: 09/1988-present
Subjects: CHOICE reviews significant current books and electronic resources of interest to those in higher education.

Book Review Index: citations only
Print: 1965-present
Subjects: Adult fiction and non-fiction, poetry & songbooks books for children, periodicals, audio books and electronic editions if also available in print. Contains a higher percentage of published book reviews than Book Review Digest.

Readers Guide to Periodical Literature: citations only
Print: 1900 to the present

3.

Consult full-text resources

Introduction

Another way to find a book review is electronically. Our databases index and have full-text versions of various book reviews. Not all book reviews will have full text. Therefore, you may have to find the citation of the review, and find it in print copy in our journal collection. Below is a link to the list of our journals and the years that we have caried the respective journals we subscribe to.

Have a citation from a print source? See if we have full-text of the journal. Do we have the journal in print?

search tips Book Review Digest
online: 1983-present
 

Choice Reviews Online
Online: 09/1988-present
search tips First Search database such as Wilson Select
online: 1994-present
search tips Article First
online: 1990-present (partial full-text)
search tips Academic LexisNexis: 5 databases News, Business, Medical, Legal Research, Reference
search tips Academic Search Premier: Contains full text reviews ranging from peer-reviewed journals to areas of study including:
Biological sciences, economics, communications, computer sciences, engineering, language, arts and literature, medical sciences, and women's studies.
search tips Historical New York Times The New York Times (1851 - 2001)
Note: under more search options, click the document types to change from "any document type" to "review".

4.

Need more sources? Consult specialized databases that index professional journals

Introduction

Professional journals often contain reviews of new, significant works in that area. Many of these sources are

search tips

JSTOR
Full-text Scholarly Journals dating back to the 19th century. Content from current 3-5 years not available.

Search tips

Book Review Digest
  • Type the last name of the author, Choose Author from the drop down menu on one line
  • Type important words from the title choosing Title on the next line
  • Limit type to "book reviews"
Wilson Select
Article First
  • Enter the last name of the author and important words from the title as keywords.
  • Choose "Book Review" for record type if available.

Academic LexisNexis

WARNING: Do NOT search by the author of the book to be reviewed since the person who wrote the review will show up in the "author" search, not the author of the piece in question!

General Search Tips:

  • For book reviews from major newspapers or selected magazines and journals (i.e. Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Times Educational Supplement) click on Guided News Search
  • Then choose the General News category
  • Select Major Newspapers (New York Times: full text 1980, abstracts 1969-80) or Magazines and Journals as the news source.

For more specialized book reviews related to the Legal/Law field or to Business choose the appropriate category on the Home page.

Basic Search Strategies:

  • Type "Book Review" in the Keyword Box
  • To narrow your search, type in either the subject or key words from the title
  • For more tips, look at the bottom of the search pages in LexisNexis
Academic Search Premier

NOTE: One advantage to using the Expert search is that you will have a record of your search history available to use at any time

Advanced Search:

  • In the 1st find box, type "book review"
  • In the 2nd find box, type full title of the book as a subject (SU). Click on search.
Expert Search:
  • In the find box, type "book review" in parentheses ()
  • Type SU and the title of the book i.e. (book review) SU Swiss Family Robinson
Academic Search Premier

Most records are more of political history and social history rather than "purely" historical in nature
  • Use the "Book Review" limiter
  • Do a keyword search or choose 'title' from the drop down menu
JSTOR

Ethnic Studies, History, Social Science, Fine Arts, Philosophy and Religion, Science and Technology, all peer reviewed professional journals.
  • Under "Refine your Search" select reviews.
  • Type in any relevant keywords, i.e. review author, title, book author, date, etc.