I'll deal with the Amazon reviews first. I feel that these two reviews do no meet the standards of a well constructed review. I would not consider them to be reliable for several reasons. In Erin's powerpoint presentation, we read John Updike's guidelines for writing reviews and these two reviews do not do a good job of following these guidelines. Neither review quotes from the book, so I have only their word to go by. Also, the second review seems to analyze what the author was trying to accomplish, but without direct quotes I have no idea whether her analysis is valid. Furthermore, the first review gives away entirely too much of the story. After reading her summary, I feel like I can fill in the gaps and use my reading time elsewhere. Given that the book is only available in ebook, I might still look to add it to my library's collection since romance novels actually circulate well in ebook format. That said, the reviews would give me some pause about buying this ebook.
The reviews of Angela's Ashes are clearly more credible since they are professionally published. While they do not follow all of Erin's suggestions to the letter, they do a very good job and are written in a way the allows me to reconcile the reviewer's opinion with textual evidence. I would feel very comfortable adding this book to my library collection based on these reviews.
Overall, I feel that if you are a selector for you library you have to view reviews as tool to help you select and nothing more. They must be taken with a grain of salt. For example, a book may not get great reviews, but you may know that it would go over well with the patrons you serve. In that situation, the reviews go out the window. In many cases, as we saw in the examples, certain types of books, like romance, do not get high quality reviews. On the other hand, other types of books, those deemed more "literary," will get over-reviewed. This can skew a library's collection away from great titles. In recent years, independently published books have become extremely popular. However, the lack of credible reviews can prevent these titles from being in a public libraries collection. The job of selecting books is made even tougher by sites that won't publish negative reviews. If everything about a book is glowing, it doesn't help a selector make a truly informed decision. That is why I say selectors need to use reviews only as a tool, but rely more on their knowledge of the patrons they serve and their interests.
On a personal note, I like to read reviews for my personal reads, but I don't put much stock in them. I will read reviews to see what the popular opinion is on a title. However, I generally decide to read a book based largely on subject matter. I really enjoy giving new authors a try so reviews don't always mean much to me.
I like seeing your take on these reviews. You and I have a much different opinion on them. I prefer shorter reviews and found the reviews about Angela's Ashes horribly long. I agree that they are well-constructed and well-written, but I think I have fallen to the dark side of the internet. I want things faster than right now. Updike's guidelines seem more like an essay's guidelines than a review. I think they might be outdated. Do you struggle reading longer reviews?
ReplyDeleteI agree that longer reviews an be a chore to work through. However, if they are well thought out then I don't mind. I tend to be a very detailed and wordy person myself, so maybe that is why. On the other hand, if I feel it is poorly written, I generally won't read it.
DeleteI like what you said about not seeing negative reviews and not taking too much stock in the reviews. It is what the people want. It helps to know that not everyone liked a book, but you will find people that do like the book. [
ReplyDeleteI agree that book reviews should be taken with a grain of salt and that some patrons will want a certain book or author regardless of a negative review. For example, the patrons at the library where I work will place request slips as soon as the title of their favorite author's next book is released- well before any reviews are published. As you stated selectors need to rely on their knowledge of their patrons' interests.
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