Guide to Finding Book Reviews

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General | Social Sciences and Education | Children and Young Adult | Additional Search Tips

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General

Academic OneFile (InfoTrac)
A multi-disciplinary database, this resource indexes over 1500 publications (and provides full text for approximately 520 publications). Content coverage includes information in nearly every area of academic study from both peer-reviewed journals to general interest magazines.

Search Tips: To limit a search to reviews, use the advanced search page. From here type the author, title, or keyword you need in the first search bar. Type the words "book review" in the second search bar.

 

Academic Search Complete 
A multi-disciplinary database, this resource indexes more than 8,200 publications (and provides full text for nearly 4,650 publications). Content coverage includes information in nearly every area of academic study from peer-reviewed journals to general interest magazines.

Search Tips: To search for book reviews only, use the limit fields available on the advanced search page. Select "book review" from the Document Type menu in the tabbed Refine Search section below the search bars.

 

Book Review Index Online
A comprehensive online index that contains over 5 million book review citations (full-text is not included). Reviews are cited from over 500 sources including national general interest publications, academic and professional publications, and newspapers.

 

Books in Print
Provides approximately 600,000 full-text book reviews (as well as citations) as a complement to its 3.5 million title records. Books in Print reviews are indexed from over 40 sources.

Search Tips: When looking at search results in this database, items with reviews are marked with a star. To limit a search to books with reviews, use the advanced search page and select either "any source" or a specific journal from the "reviewed in" menu on the right hand side of the search page. In order to access reviews, click on the "title reviews" tab at the top of the full record for a particular book.

 

Choice Reviews Online
This is the online version of the print magazine CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, a publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries. It provides reviews of significant books and electronic resources of interest to those in higher education. This resource accesses the entire database of CHOICE reviews published since September 1988.

 

Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe
This database indexes national and regional newspapers, as well as popular magazines and journals. Full text coverage is sometimes limited. Not as comprehensive or scholarly compared to other sources, but can be most helpful for finding very recent full text reviews for major publications.

Search Tips: The most direct way to find reviews is to start by using the Guided News Search. From here select "Arts & Sports News" from the news category drop down menu. Next, select "Book, movie, music, & play reviews" from the news source drop down menu. Now you can search author, title, or keywords and set your date range.

 

MagillOnLiterature Plus
The content coverage of this database includes discussion of 20,000 works by 9,300 authors. It includes plot summaries, author biographies, and reviews and critical essays of fiction and non-fiction publications.

Search Tips: To search for book reviews, type the word "review" along with either the book author or title of the work. You also may want to use the limit fields available on the advanced search page. Select "work analyses" from the Record Type menu when searching for an author or book title.

 


Social Sciences and Education

Academic Search Complete  (EBSCO)
(see above for full description)

 

Anthropology Review Database
A database of reviews of anthropological books, films & videos, audio recordings, software, multimedia, and online resources. Sponsored by the University of Buffalo Department of Anthropology, this resource provides broad and timely coverage of current publications and products.

 

AnthroSource
This portal to the American Anthropologist Association publications includes book reviews from the 32 publications indexed.

Search Tips: Select the search option on the left side of the screen. Search with the name of the book in quotes or try searching by author (lastname, firstname).

Search Tips: Book reviews can be located either by performing a keyword search for the title of the book or by performing an author search.

 

Education Full-Text
An education database that indexes and abstracts articles from English-language periodicals and yearbooks published in the United States and elsewhere. Abstracting coverage begins with January 1994. Full-text coverage begins in January 1996.

Search Tips: Choose Education Full-Text from the database menu at the top of the search screen. Search by keyword, title, or author. To search for book reviews only, select "book review" from the Document Type drop down menu limit available near the bottom of the page.

 

ERIC
A national education database sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. Contains over 1,000,000 citations covering a wide variety of resources such as research documents, journal articles, technical reports, and curricular materials in the field of education. It also includes abstracts, and selective full-text.

Search Tips: To search for book reviews, type the phrase "book review" along with either the book author or title of the work. Or, you may want to use the More Limits link after you perform a search for the title or author. From More Limits you can select "book or product reviews" from the menu below Publication Types.

 

JSTOR
This full text database includes complete digitized back runs of core scholarly journals in a wide variety of disciplines including sociology, political science, anthropology, education, African American studies, feminist & women's studies, religion and folklore. Useful for retrospective searches, as JSTOR does not include current issues (typically 3-5 years) of its journal coverage.

Search Tips: To limit a search to reviews, first select the advanced search option. Type the title of the book in the exact phrase box. Next, check the "review" box next to "these types" in the Narrow Your Search field below the search bars. To expedite your search, you can also select the disciplines/journals in which you'd like to search.

 

PAIS International with Archive
This database indexes the literature of public affairs, covering current topics and actions which affect world communities, countries, people, and governments in regards to political, economic, and social issues. It contains references to journal articles, books, government documents, and other literature, however, newspapers and newsletters are not indexed.

Search Tips: Using the advanced search page, type the author, title, or keyword you are searching for in the first search bar. If you need to limit your search further, you may want to type the word "review" in the next search bar (below the first).

Social Sciences Citation Index  (Web of Knowledge)
This resource provides access to current and retrospective bibliographic information and cited references found in over 1,700 scholarly social sciences journals. Content covers more than 50 disciplines.

Search Tips: Select Web of Science from the list provided of searchable database products. Next, select Social Sciences Citation Index at the bottom of the page and click on General Search at the top of the page. Type the book title in the topic search bar, then scroll down the page to restrict the search to book review from the available drop down menu.

 

Social Services Abstracts 
This resource provides bibliographic coverage of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development. The database indexes over 1,300 serials publications and includes abstracts of journal articles and dissertations, and citations to book reviews.

Search Tips: To limit a search to reviews, use the advanced search page. From here type the author, title, or keyword you need in the first search bar. In the next search bar (below the first), type the phrase "book review" as a keyword search.

 

SocINDEX with Full Text
This database is a comprehensive sociology research database. Coverage includes related disciplines in the social sciences, including anthropology, criminology, criminal justice, cultural sociology, demography, ethnic & racial studies, gender studies, marriage & family, politics, religion, social psychology, social work, sociological theory, and urban studies.

Search Tips: To search for book reviews only, use the limit fields available on the advanced search page. Select "book review" from the Document Type menu in the tabbed Refine Search section below the search bars.

 

Sociological Abstracts
This resource indexes research in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences, including anthropology, education, law, social psychology, and urban studies. The database draws information from over 1,800 journals, plus conference papers, books, and dissertations.

Search Tips: To limit a search to reviews, use the advanced search page. From here type the author, title, or keyword you need in the first search bar. In the next search bar (below the first), type the phrase "book review" as a keyword search.

 

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
This database provides indexing of the international serials literature in political science and its complementary fields, including international relations, law, and public administration / policy.

Search Tips: To limit a search to reviews, use the advanced search page. From here type the author, title, or keyword you need in the first search bar. In the next search bar (below the first), type the phrase "book review" as a keyword search.

 


Children and Young Adult

Academic Search Complete  (EBSCO) 
(see above for full description)

 

Book Review Index Online
(see above for full description)

Search Tips: To narrow your search to children's literature, use the limit fields available below the search bar. Select "Children's review" or Young Adult review" from the drop down menu next to the limit "by reading level of book".

 

Books in Print
Provides approximately 600,000 full-text book reviews (as well as citations) as a complement to its 3.5 million title records. Books in Print reviews are indexed from over 40 sources. This resource also provides a "Children's Room" feature (the link is located near the left top of the screen) which highlights current titles and authors and provides additional special interest links.

Search Tips: When looking at search results in this database, items with reviews are marked with a star. To limit a search to books with reviews, use the advanced search page. From here select either "any source" or a specific journal from the "reviewed in" menu on the right hand side of the search page. In order to access reviews, click on the "title reviews" tab at the top of the full record for a particular book.

 

Children's Literature Comprehensive Database
This database offers a wide range of information on children's literature including full-text reviews. It contains more than 150,000 critical reviews of thousands of children's books (from board books to young adult novels) from 33 sources. The majority of the reviews provided from review sources is from 1993 to the present and they are full-text searchable.

Search Tips: From the main Children's Literature web site, scroll over "Database Services" in the top blue bar, and then select "CLCD Children's Literature Comprehensive Database." On the next screen, select the "please click here to begin searching" link. You have now arrived at the CLCD search screen. From this web page, you may begin searching for book titles, author names, or book topics into the search box at the top of the screen. When looking at search results in this database, items with reviews are marked with a green dot.

 

NoveList
This database offers annotations and full-text reviews for over 135,000 fiction titles. Coverage includes picture books, chapter books, young adult titles and books for adult readers. Full-text reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, School Library Journal, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly are included.

Search Tips: Select the "Search Our Database" tab from the top of the screen. Search by author or title or keywords. When you've found the title you are looking for, click to the full record. If reviews are available, there will be a link for "reviews" located below the main title information.

 


Additional Search Tips

Online book stores are also a good source for finding reviews of children's and young adult literature. Both Amazon and Barnes and Noble frequently include reviews from a variety of respected review journals, including Publisher's Weekly, School Library Journal, Booklist, and Kirkus.

 


 

Visit the Ask-A-Librarian webpage for any questions or comments you have about the test materials discussed above.
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