Guide to Finding Book Reviews
Full-Text Reviews of Recently Published Books
- Academic Search Complete (coverage varies; approximately 1880s to date). Provides full-text reviews from magazines, journals, and newspapers as well as citations and abstracts (article summaries). To locate reviews: 1) Be sure you're on the Advanced Search screen. 2) Type the author and title of the book in the top two search boxes (no need to change default settings). 3) Limit your search by clicking on "book review" in the drop-down "document type" window. 4) Click "search."
- Book Review Index Plus (1965 to date). Provides full-text reviews from magazines, journals, and newspapers as well as citations and abstracts (article summaries). Full-text review coverage begins in the mid-1980s.
- Books in Print (Global Edition) (coverage varies). Lists in-print, out-of-print, and forthcoming titles from more than 40 countries. A star beside a title indicates the inclusion of full-text review(s). Click on the title, then the "Title Reviews" tab at top.
- ChoiceReviews.online (1988 to date). Full-text scholarly reviews from Choice magazine.
- Factiva (coverage varies by publication). Provides access to thousands of full-text works from magazines, newspapers, news wires, and reports from around the world.
- Horn Book (1990 to date). Brief, critical reviews of children's and young adult books.
- JSTOR (archived publications from the 1800s to the last 1-5 years). A full-text collection of scholarly journals in a wide variety of disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. To locate reviews: 1) Click on "Advanced Search." 2) Type the author of the book in the "author" drop-down window and the title of the book, within quotation marks, as a "full-text" phrase in the next window. 3) Limit your search by clicking on "review."
- LexisNexis Academic (coverage varies; mostly 1990s to date). Contains full-text articles from newspapers, magazines, legal and business sources, reference books, and other works. To locate book reviews: 1) Click on Power Search. 2) Leave default setting at "Terms and Connectors." 3) Type the author and title of the book in the search window, separated by "and." If you are certain of the title and the exact way the author’s name appears on the book, enclose each with quotation marks so they will be searched as phrases. 4) In the "Select Sources" drop-down window, choose a category, such as "News, All (English, Full Text)." 5. Fill out the appropriate date range, such as "all available dates." 6. Click Search.
- Literature Resource Center (LRC) (coverage varies by publication). Provides access to critical analyses of and biographical information on living and deceased authors from around the world. To find book reviews, do an “Advanced” search on the author’s name and the book title.
See the
TipSheet on using this database. - Newspaper Source Plus (coverage varies; mostly 1990s to date). Includes the full text for some 150 national and international newspapers and selective full text for more than 400 U.S. newspapers. Also contains television and radio news transcripts. To locate reviews: 1) Be sure you're on the Advanced Search screen. 2) Type the author and title of the book in the top two search boxes (no need to change default settings). 3) Limit your search by clicking on "book review" in the drop-down "document type" window. 4) Click "search."
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers (coverage varies). Provides full-text and full-image articles for the New York Times (1851 to within the last several years) and the Washington Post (1877 to 1991). Users can search the newspapers separately or together.
Citations, Abstracts, and Reviews of Older Books
Many of the Libraries' databases provide periodical indexing back only to the 1980s. A few databases, however, extend coverage back much further. Some excellent print sources also provide citations to reviews of older books.
- Academic Search Complete (coverage varies; approximately 1880s to date). Provides full-text reviews from magazines, journals, and newspapers as well as citations and abstracts (article summaries). To locate reviews: 1) Be sure you're on the Advanced Search screen. 2) Type the author and title of the book in the top two search boxes (no need to change default settings). 3) Limit your search by clicking on "book review" in the drop-down "document type" window. 4) Click "search."
- American Periodicals Series Online (1740 to 1900). Provides digitized images of more than 1,000 American magazines and journals. To limit a search to book reviews, 1) Click on "Advanced Search. 2) Choose "Document type" from the first drop-down menu and click on the "Browse document types" link that pops up. Click on the "Add to Search" button opposite the word "Review." 3) Type the author's name and the title of the book in the following two windows and click on "Search."
- Book Review Index Plus (1965 to date). Provides citations and abstracts (summaries) to reviews appearing in magazines and newspapers. Full-text review coverage begins in the mid-1980s.
- FirstSearch databases (coverage varies; mostly 1980s to date). Provides access to dozens of indexes and databases in a variety of disciplines. Some of the subject-specific databases cite book reviews.
- Literature Resource Center (LRC) (coverage varies by publication). Provides access to critical analyses of and biographical information on living and deceased authors from around the world. To find book reviews, do an “Advanced” search on the author’s name and the book title.
- Newspaper Source Plus (coverage varies; mostly 1990s to date). Includes the full text for some 150 national and international newspapers and selective full text for more than 400 U.S. newspapers. Also contains television and radio news transcripts. To locate reviews: 1) Be sure you're on the Advanced Search screen. 2) Type the author and title of the book in the top two search boxes (no need to change default settings). 3) Limit your search by clicking on "book review" in the drop-down "document type" window. 4) Click "search."
- Periodicals Index Online (formerly PCI) (1665 to 1995). Provides author, title, and keyword access to the table-of-contents pages of more than 2,700 worldwide periodicals. To locate citations to book reviews, 1) Click on "Article Search." 2) Type the author's name and title of the book in the "Keyword(s)" window.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers (coverage varies). Provides full-text and full-image articles for the New York Times (1851 to within the last several years) and the Washington Post (1877 to 1991). Users can search the newspapers separately or together.
- Book Review Digest (1905 to date). REFB Z 1219 .C96). Lists book reviews from American, Canadian, and British magazines and newspapers. Includes excerpts from many of the reviews. Be sure to check annual volumes corresponding to a book's publication date, as well as 1 to 2 succeeding volumes.
- Combined Retrospective Index to Book Reviews in Scholarly Journals, 1886-1974. REFB Z 1035 .A1 C64. Includes references to more than 1,000,000 reviews in some 450 scholarly journals.
- An Index to Book Reviews in the Humanities (1960 to 1990). REFB Z 1035 .AI I63. Lists reviews from several hundred popular and scholarly periodicals. Be sure to check annual volumes corresponding to a book's publication date, as well as 1 to 2 succeeding volumes.
- National Library Service Cumulative Book Review Index, 1905-1974. REFB Z 1035 .A1 N35. Cites book reviews from the periodicals Choice, Library Journal, and Saturday Review. Includes references to reviews listed in the Book Review Digest (see above).
- New York Times Book Review Index, 1896-1970. REFB Z 1035 .A1 N411. An index to the first 75 years of the book review section of the New York Times.
History Reviews
You can locate book reviews in works that index historical journals. Scholarly reviews are also occasionally included in titles already mentioned in this guide, such as Book Review Index Plus, ChoiceReviews.online, Gale PowerSearch, JSTOR, and Periodicals Index Online.
- America: History and Life (1964 to date). An abstract database devoted to United States and Canadian history from earliest times to the present. To limit a search to book reviews, 1) Click on "Advanced Search " at the top of the screen. 2) Type the author and title of the book in the drop-down windows. 3) Click on "Book Review" in the Document Type window.
- Historical Abstracts (1954 to date). This abstract database covers all aspects of history (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present. To limit a search to book reviews, 1) Click on "Advanced Search " at the top of the screen. 2) Type the author and title of the book in the drop-down windows. 3) Click on "Book Review" in the Document Type window.
- Humanities Abstracts (1983 to date). Indexes a broad range of some 500 magazines and journal publications. To find book reviews, 1) On the "Advanced Search" page type the author and title of the book in the first window. 2) In the "Document Type" drop-down menu, click on "Book Review."
- Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984. Indexes nearly 1,200 periodicals in the social sciences and humanities. To find book reviews, 1) On the "Advanced Search" page type the author and title of the book in the first window. 2) In the "Document Type" drop-down menu, click on "Book Review."
- Social Sciences Abstracts (1971 to date). Interdisciplinary database covering more than 400 English-language social science journals. To locate book reviews, 1) Type the author and title of the book in the first window. 2) Click on "More Search Options." 3) In the "Document type" drop-down menu, click on "Book Review" (about halfway down the menu in the list under "Review").
- Combined Retrospective Index to Book Reviews in Scholarly Journals, 1886-1974. REFB Z 1035 .A1 C64 . Includes references to more than 1,000,000 reviews in some 450 scholarly journals.
Virtual Libraries
Virtual libraries contain annotated collections of high-quality Internet resources that librarians or other information specialists have carefully selected. Users can usually browse by subject or search.