Finding Book Reviews
This is a general guide for finding book reviews in the social sciences and humanities.
Please note that there are separate Book Review guides for:
Anthropology
Classical Studies
Contemporary fiction
Geography & Environmental Studies
History (including Australian sources)
Scientific books
University of Adelaide staff or students should consult their respective Research or Branch librarian for additional book review resources specific to a subject or topic.
In order to search the most appropriate database you will need to ascertain the date of publication of the book you are reviewing. Allow about 2 years after that for the review process then choose a database which covers this period.
Academic OneFile (Thomson Gale)
Coverage is from ca.1980 onwards.
At the opening screen enter a word or words from the author/title of the book and add the phrase book reviews
Academic Search Premier (EBSCO)
Coverage is from ca.1985 onwards.
A search by title should be sufficient, but adding the phrase book reviews to your search using the Boolean operator AND will limit the results to only book reviews
Book Review Index
A comprehensive online guide to book reviews. Coverage is from 1965 onwards
Current Contents
Coverage is for the latest five years. A Quick Search on the Title of the book should be sufficient. However, if this produces too many extraneous records, choose the General search option, input the book title in the topic/subject option then scroll down the page to restrict the search to Book Review
JSTOR
Date coverage varies depending on individual titles, but overall coverage ranges from the late 19th century onward. Note that JSTOR is primarily an archive of back issues and does not cover current journal literature.
At the JSTOR search screen select Advanced search, input the name of the book in quotations, use the drop-down menu to select Article Title, and the Search Type to Review
Periodicals index online
Coverage varies depending on individual titles. Note that PIO is primarily an index of back issues and does not cover current journal literature.
Select the Article Search option and input the title in the Article Title Keyword field. In the Search Options box limit the search to Book reviews
Sociological Abstracts
Coverage is from 1963 onwards, but book reviews are only indexed from ca.1975.
At the search screen enter the title of the book then add the phrase pt=review (example: globalization and its discontents and pt=review). This will limit the search to finding book reviews
Web of Science
Coverage is from 1980 onwards. A Quick Search on the Title of the book should be sufficient. However, if this produces too many extraneous records, choose the General search option, input the book title in the topic/subject option then scroll down the page to restrict the search to Book Review
Other possibilities
API review of books - an online monthly published by the Australian Public Intellectual Network. It covers mostly Australian titles
Ozlife : Australian biography and book review index - indexes book reviews from major Australian newspapers and selected journals. Coverage is from 2000 onwards.
Book Review Digest - a print publication which covers the period 1905-1994
Last update: 8 November 2007
This page is maintained by Helen Attar
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