Week 5 Prompt

Based on what I see at my own library, if a book has been featured in Booklist, it’s almost a guarantee that we will get it for our collection. I enjoy looking through Booklist, but it seems like they’ve already decided on what the next great books are going to be. I appreciate that Kirkus adds all kinds of reviews, but I think it’s unfair to give each book just one review, particularly if it’s negative. Every reader is different and enjoys different things. Perhaps they could balance it out by providing a negative and positive review.

As mainly a romance reader, I see a lot of eBook only books come up on my Instagram or TikTok feed, but many times they aren’t in our collection. I use the collection request tool for my library often. Many of these books I see are being promoted by the authors themselves with fun reels that get me interested. As I work mainly on public service desks at my library and have not taken collection development courses, I think the trend of BookTok and authors promoting themselves through social media adds an interesting layer to collection development. I wonder if it will affect collection development in the future.

I loved looking at the reviews for The Billionaire’s First Christmas. These are actually the types of reviews I appreciate when I go looking for my next romance read. I think both of the reviews are reliable. The amazon reviewer basically said that this is their type of book, while also summarizing the plot and explaining why they enjoyed it. The blog review was very balanced. They didn’t really like the premise of one character enjoying Christmas a lot and the other one hating it, but they enjoyed other parts of it. Holiday romances are very popular with our patrons, so I could see that we would purchase this for our library, but probably a very limited amount.

The reviews for Angela’s Ashes made me want to read the book immediately. The reviews did a great job of showing that it is a book with very difficult themes, but I enjoyed that each of the reviews said that the book’s tone was hopeful. I think it would be a good addition to our collection.

I don’t necessarily think this is fair, but I understand how certain books will get so many more reviews and others won’t. As a librarian, I have access to Edelweiss which gives access to Advanced Reader’s Copies. On a book’s page, they offer insight into the marketing strategy for books. I’ve come across some who have book tours, several giveaways, influencer agreements, and many other promotions. I’ve also seen books with a very limited marketing strategy, some of which just include ARC giveaways. This is speaking from my own experience as a reader and what I see at my library, but the books that have the most marketing and buzz and reviews are the ones that will most likely be added to a collection. Ones with less coverage are not added or are requested by patrons who would like to read those books.

I think that review sources that won’t print negative content should make sure that the books they are promoting have mainly positive reviews. Given the fact that I see many of the books featured in Booklist on the shelves at my library, negative reviews being featured will probably make it difficult for that book to get added to library collections. I do think having review sources print positive only content is appropriate, especially since negative reviews – particularly 1 to 2 star reviews- I’ve seen tend to be very subjective. Reading tastes are different for everyone, and even for the most well-reviewed book, you can find someone who will say it was a horrible story.

When I find a book I’m interested in, I tend to go to Goodreads to find the 5-star, 3-star, and 1-star reviews. I like seeing the full spectrum of opinions on a book. However, reviews are less important to me than the summary or snippet of the book. I mainly want to know what I’m getting from the story and tend to enjoy forming my own opinions.