How to Do Library Research

This page has sources for identifying book reviews. Book reviews help researchers outside and even inside a subject area evaluate books that they may want to use themselves. Scholarly books sometimes present views unpopular with colleagues or have a highly controversial content; a researcher will need to know this before discussing an idea. It is always a good idea to locate more than one opinion (book review) if researching an unfamiliar subject. One book review may be biased or controversial in itself and considered by other experts to be an unfair evaluation of the book reviewed. Additionally, a periodical or other reviewing source may have an inherent ideological bias.

Book Reviews: Where to Find Them

To find reviews of a book, start with:

1. The full name of the author.
2. The exact title of the book.
3. Frequently, the year the book was published because reviews usually appear in the year after the book is first printed. Look for the original date of publication, or the copyright date, on the front or back of the title page of the book, or in a library's catalog entry.

 Once book reviews have been identified, check the online catalog to find out if the Libraries have the journal and the volume/issue it is in. See How to Determine if the Library Owns the Journal for details on locating this information.

Note: Not every book has been reviewed in a published source!