Week Five Prompt

When making decisions about what books to buy for their library, librarians have to weed through a seemingly endless supply of books. In order to make the decision to purchase one, a librarian needs to hear about it in some way. If ebook only books are not reviewed and discussed on professional sites, there is a much smaller chance librarians and readers will hear about the book and make the decision to purchase.

I do feel like both of these reviews for The Billionaire's First Christmas are reliable. The blog posting gives more helpful information about the plot of the book and some criticism for its believability. The Amazon review gives a short, handy glimpse into the perspective of a woman who is likely this book’s target audience. After taking a look at these and some other reviews, I would likely buy this book as an ebook for my library collection around the holidays.  

Angela's Ashes is definitely a book I would add to my library collection if it was not already there. It was an international bestseller, won a Pulitzer, has over 600,000 readers on Goodreads alone, and was made into a movie. Aside from these facts, the comparison of book reviews paint a fascinating picture of this author’s life that goes deeper than the average autobiography. I believe this would make a worthy addition to any library collection even 26 years after publication.

Though I don’t think its quite fair that ebook only books are hardly reviewed compared to traditionally published books, I can understand that it might be more difficult for professional reviewers to hear about these books in the first place. It does seem like this has created a deficit in libraries, especially since such a large chunk of ebook only books are romances. Romance is such a popular genre these days, especially with the rise of BookTok and similar platforms, that it seems relevant for libraries to invest more in these non-traditional books, even if it is primarily on their digital apps like Libby.

I was not previously aware that there were review sites that only publish positive reviews, as I think being honest about books is essential. I have 300-plus books on my to-read list, so I typically will not read a book if it has very bad reviews because I have a lot of other books I could be reading instead. In addition, librarians do not want to spend a ton of money on books that their patrons will not enjoy.

Currently, I do not make any purchasing decisions for a library, but I do like to research a bit about books personally before I read them. Goodreads is probably my favorite source for book information, but I find Google very helpful as well, especially for finding topical book lists; Book Riot is a website I will read a lot. I also use NoveList occasionally for myself, mainly for read-alikes.