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IV. Access to—and impact of—book reviews

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

David Henige
David Henige*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin—Madison
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Extract

The authors of the set of essays on various aspects of reviewing recently published in ARD (no. 102 [2007]:13-35) argue en ensemble that reviews continue to fill a function in scholarly communications—an unofficial system of checks and balances that can and often does set limits on how cases are presented to the public. I am less convinced of this than the authors, at least as to their value in the library acquisitions process. At any rate, the greater their value, the greater the need to optimize the production and reception by launching a number of reforms that would have the effect of providing this argument with grounds that could make it even stronger.

Book reviews have long been touted as a means to influence institutional purchasing, not only of scholarly books but of all books. Focusing on the former, it strikes me that this could never have been much the case.

Type
Articles
Information
African Research and Documentation , Volume 104 , 2007 , pp. 3 - 7
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2007

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References

1 Africa-published materials from vendors like Hogarth Representation are more likely to be materials that the vendors’ agents have managed to acquire rather than materials requested by librarians, and are not at all review dependent, not least because they virtually never get reviewed. Yet Africanist librarians hardly hesitate at all to take them when offered.Google Scholar
2 An impressionistic, but not necessarily inaccurate, sense of this can be gained by comparing the number of books reviewed in the typical scholarly journal with the number of titles in “books received” section that often precedes or follows reviews.Google Scholar
3 I could add timing to this list: a book I wrote on Columbus’ account of his maiden voyage to the Americas appeared just before the Quincentenary ‘celebrations’ and received more than forty reviews. Had it been published ten years earlier or ten years later, it would have been fortunate indeed to have received a fifth of this number even if every argument and every word had been the same.Google Scholar
4 It might just be that the greatest impact of reviews falls on the authors, whether they be published immediately or much later. It is becoming more commonplace to weigh a candidate for promotion with both books and the reviews of them; thus bad reviews can be toxic to one's academic wellbeing.Google Scholar
5 The fact that I almost invariably find these volumes to be in our collection reinforces my suspicion that they were purchased long before being reviewed.Google Scholar
6 To put it another way—the best Africana collections are not always housed in the best general collections.Google Scholar