Week 5 Prompt Response
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. How does this affect collection development?
Although I have not done any professional collection development in my library system, I have spoken with our developers in acquisitions a few times. I know that reviews greatly influence purchasing decisions, along with vendor availability, so materials that do not get reviewed (which is a lot of them, frankly) don’t stand much of a chance when it comes to library acquisitions.
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?
Both reviews for The Billionaire’s First Christmas feel very subjective. Each reviewer discusses how the book made them feel, and what they thought of the characters. The first review is grammatically poor, though clear in its appreciation for the story. The second review is a little better, though still somewhat disjointed. Given the wealth of Christmas romances that exist, I would probably add this to a “Maybe” acquisitions list since both reviewers praised its coziness.
How do these reviews make you feel about the possibility of adding Angela's Ashes to your collection?
When a book receives so many positive reviews, it is almost required for a library to purchase the item, if only to be able to satisfy patrons who ask for it. However, I did see a few accusations of inaccuracy and embellishment while searching for reviews. In 2000, the Washington Post printed an article about Limerick citizens’ anger over the representation of real individuals in the book. According to the article, one such citizen said of McCourt, “He named names. He insulted people. Most of the people are dead. But the families have to suffer and live with the consequences.” (Mack, 2000). In 2020, another reviewer wrote of the book, “The prose that used to flow suddenly turned into a verbose bile that taints Limerick and its institutions…a literary attack on the city of his childhood. His flowery words laced his family’s circumstances with a veneer of superficiality. The squalor that McCourt portrayed came out as over-romanticized, over-sensationalized” (Batnag, 2020). In order to provide a counterpoint to the negativity in McCourt’s memoir, I would recommend the purchase of at least one nonfiction history of Ireland to offer a picture of an Ireland that has progressed. One possibility is Fintan O’Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves, which received positive reviews on Kirkus and in the New York Times.
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? How does this affect a library's collection?
More often than not, the books that receive reviews in notable professional sources are ones that are traditionally published. Books that are published by a small press or by the author themselves are frequently overlooked by mainstream reviewers, leaving the review writing to individual readers who post their thoughts on social media. Is this fair? No. But it is the result of the increasing power of big publishing houses, and there is little an individual can do to combat it apart from writing their own reviews. As far as the effect on libraries, it means that larger libraries that purchase materials through a vendor, which makes the majority of purchasing decisions based on market expectations, are less likely to acquire items that are less mainstream. This is especially true if the library has a contract with the vendor limiting what it can purchase outside of the vendor's stock.
And how do you feel about review sources that won't print negative content? Do you think that's appropriate?
In regards to limiting reviews to only the positive, it is suspect. It leads me to wonder if the source of the review has a particular relationship with the publisher or author of the book, and so they want to censor negative reviews as much as possible. This is dishonest to readers, who are then unaware of potential failings in the book before they read it for themselves. Oftentimes bad reviews mention scenes or subjects that could be equated to content warnings, which most published books do not have. Without these warnings, a reader could find themselves mired in a story that contains elements upsetting to them, which they deserve to know about ahead of time in order to do what’s best for themselves.
If you buy for your library, how often do you use reviews to make your decisions? If not, how do you feel about reviews for personal reading, and what are some of your favorite review sources?
I do not make purchasing decisions at my library, though we are able to make purchase suggestions to our acquisitions department. In general, I don’t often look for reviews before picking up a book, but if I have concerns over the story or writing, I typically look at Goodreads reviews, which usually contains a mix of positive and negative reviews. The negative reviews give me warnings about what other people disliked, while the positive help me understand the appeal of the book. I don’t often write my own reviews for books I’ve read unless it is something that affected me one way or another. When I do write reviews, they often help me to remember the book and its story, which is quite helpful as my memory can be poor at times.
Although I have not done any professional collection development in my library system, I have spoken with our developers in acquisitions a few times. I know that reviews greatly influence purchasing decisions, along with vendor availability, so materials that do not get reviewed (which is a lot of them, frankly) don’t stand much of a chance when it comes to library acquisitions.
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?
Both reviews for The Billionaire’s First Christmas feel very subjective. Each reviewer discusses how the book made them feel, and what they thought of the characters. The first review is grammatically poor, though clear in its appreciation for the story. The second review is a little better, though still somewhat disjointed. Given the wealth of Christmas romances that exist, I would probably add this to a “Maybe” acquisitions list since both reviewers praised its coziness.
How do these reviews make you feel about the possibility of adding Angela's Ashes to your collection?
When a book receives so many positive reviews, it is almost required for a library to purchase the item, if only to be able to satisfy patrons who ask for it. However, I did see a few accusations of inaccuracy and embellishment while searching for reviews. In 2000, the Washington Post printed an article about Limerick citizens’ anger over the representation of real individuals in the book. According to the article, one such citizen said of McCourt, “He named names. He insulted people. Most of the people are dead. But the families have to suffer and live with the consequences.” (Mack, 2000). In 2020, another reviewer wrote of the book, “The prose that used to flow suddenly turned into a verbose bile that taints Limerick and its institutions…a literary attack on the city of his childhood. His flowery words laced his family’s circumstances with a veneer of superficiality. The squalor that McCourt portrayed came out as over-romanticized, over-sensationalized” (Batnag, 2020). In order to provide a counterpoint to the negativity in McCourt’s memoir, I would recommend the purchase of at least one nonfiction history of Ireland to offer a picture of an Ireland that has progressed. One possibility is Fintan O’Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves, which received positive reviews on Kirkus and in the New York Times.
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? How does this affect a library's collection?
More often than not, the books that receive reviews in notable professional sources are ones that are traditionally published. Books that are published by a small press or by the author themselves are frequently overlooked by mainstream reviewers, leaving the review writing to individual readers who post their thoughts on social media. Is this fair? No. But it is the result of the increasing power of big publishing houses, and there is little an individual can do to combat it apart from writing their own reviews. As far as the effect on libraries, it means that larger libraries that purchase materials through a vendor, which makes the majority of purchasing decisions based on market expectations, are less likely to acquire items that are less mainstream. This is especially true if the library has a contract with the vendor limiting what it can purchase outside of the vendor's stock.
And how do you feel about review sources that won't print negative content? Do you think that's appropriate?
In regards to limiting reviews to only the positive, it is suspect. It leads me to wonder if the source of the review has a particular relationship with the publisher or author of the book, and so they want to censor negative reviews as much as possible. This is dishonest to readers, who are then unaware of potential failings in the book before they read it for themselves. Oftentimes bad reviews mention scenes or subjects that could be equated to content warnings, which most published books do not have. Without these warnings, a reader could find themselves mired in a story that contains elements upsetting to them, which they deserve to know about ahead of time in order to do what’s best for themselves.
If you buy for your library, how often do you use reviews to make your decisions? If not, how do you feel about reviews for personal reading, and what are some of your favorite review sources?
I do not make purchasing decisions at my library, though we are able to make purchase suggestions to our acquisitions department. In general, I don’t often look for reviews before picking up a book, but if I have concerns over the story or writing, I typically look at Goodreads reviews, which usually contains a mix of positive and negative reviews. The negative reviews give me warnings about what other people disliked, while the positive help me understand the appeal of the book. I don’t often write my own reviews for books I’ve read unless it is something that affected me one way or another. When I do write reviews, they often help me to remember the book and its story, which is quite helpful as my memory can be poor at times.
References
Batnag, C. L. (2020, February 15). Book review # 156: Angela’s Ashes. The Pine-Scented Chronicles. Retrieved on February 8, 2023 from https://thetorogichronicles.com/2020/02/15/book-review-156-angelas-ashes/
Kirkus Reviews. (2021, December 21). “We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland.” Retrieved on February 8, 2023 from
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/fintan-otoole/we-dont-know-ourselves/
Mack, T. (2000, January 20). Anger rises from ‘Angela's Ashes.’ Washington Post. Retrieved on February 8, 2023 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/2000-01/20/061r-012000-idx.html
McCann, C. (2022, March 15). His life was too boring for a memoir. So he wrote Ireland’s. New York Times. Retrieved on February 8, 2023 from
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/15/books/review/fintan-otoole-we-dont-know-ourselves-ireland.html
I agree with only posting positive reviews being suspect and it also makes me question the relationship between that author and publisher. That is why when I answered this, I thought how honesty is slowly fading away in our society. Authenticity is rare and hard to find these days!
ReplyDeleteHi Lauren!
ReplyDeleteI find the controversy over Angela’s Ashes quite interesting considering how the book is so popular and has won so many awards. I love that you included specific references to Limerick citizen’s anger and why the book was not well received with everyone. It shows how, just because a book has great reviews, doesn’t mean that it’s “good” or that it doesn’t hurt a group of people.
It’s especially amazing that you thought about rounding out the collection with other materials to purchase alongside Angela’s Ashes. I wouldn’t have thought to do that.
Hi Katie,
DeleteI feel like at some point in a previous class, a discussion took place on how to make sure a collection is balanced, information-wise, and it seemed like a good way to combat the negativity contained in Angela's Ashes. Which is not to say it isn't a "good" book and worthy of its accolades, just that, yeah, sometimes something is great at the expense of someone else.
I love that you dove deeper into Angela's Ashes! It definitely had some controversy at the time - which only helped make it more popular and talked about. Great response and full points!
Delete