Week Five - Prompt Response

 

Both reviews for this ebook-only romance novel could be considered reliable in the sense that I see no reason they aren't the true, expressed feelings of the readers. However, the first review (from Amazon) is extremely casual, lacking format and grammar. The second (a blog-post style) makes me think it comes from a serious reader who does make a habit of reviewing books. 

I would be unlikely to add this book to a library collection, unless a patron specifically requested it. Based on the reviews, and on the number of ratings it has on Goodreads, I'm just not convinced it would have high circulation. It's also available completely free on the Kindle, and since it's an ebook only, that's probably how patrons would access it already. 

On the other hand, the reviews for Angela's Ashes make it sound like any library collection that does not contain this book is missing something. Because the book is so well-regarded, and because it is considered a classic, it is likely that patrons will specifically seek it out. It isn't only librarians who use these review sources, but readers as well. So, if a book is getting a lot of buzz, or has been consistently beloved for years, a library should make sure that they have enough copies to meet patrons' needs. It also circumvents having to order a book and wait for it to come in, when you can reasonably guess that you'll need a copy at some point. 

I'm not going to pretend like it's fair that some books get reviewed in every available publication, while others are released as free ebooks to almost no notice. However, time is a limited resource. Reviewers can't read and write about every book that comes out. This does have an unbalancing effect on library collections, and becomes a recursive loop. A book that is reviewed more is going to be more popular, so libraries stock more copies. But then, smaller books that aren't even in a library's collection are never going to be able to become popular, because patrons can't even discover or access them. It's a problem that I'm not entirely sure libraries have the capacity or responsibility to solve. Self-publishing, free ebooks, and word-of-mouth/"non-professional" reader reviews might be the best way for unknown authors to combat the issue. 

Publications that refuse to publish negative book reviews feel pointless to me. Negative reviews often point out important problematic things about a book - I'm specifically thinking of the controversy surrounding American Dirt - and without them, people and libraries might purchase things that they would never knowingly support. I understand the impulse of following "if you can't say anything nice. don't say anything at all," especially about something as personal as a book. But come on. It's a review. Not everything can be good.

I do a little bit of book purchasing for my company, although they're mostly medical textbooks so the process is slightly different. It's rare that the decision comes from me - usually our editors request books specifically and so reviews never come into play. However, I do pay close attention to reader reviews for my personal reading. I don't necessarily keep up with professional publications, but mainly focus on Goodreads reviews. The reviews aren't the end-all, be-all (like, I'm never going to dismiss a book just because it doesn't have a high rating) but it is helpful to skim some reviews to make sure a book isn't just...racist or sexist, or incredibly misleading, or anything like that.