Week 5: Prompt Response

The Billionare’s First Christmas is a book I would not recommend my library to purchase based on the reviews.   I don’t find the reviews to be unreliable (despite the grammar and spelling errors), however, neither of them convinced me that this is a book worth reading.  I don’t think the library should be spending money on a book that is “just fine” when there are millions of books out there that are a lot better than “just fine”.  Also, I have a hard time trusting a person’s judgment who had “tears rolling down her face” from the description of a characters love for Santa Claus. (Only half kidding).

I’ve already read Angela’s Ashes, but for the sake of this assignment, lets say I hadn’t.  Reading those reviews would have definitely persuaded me to adding Angela’s Ashes to my library’s collection.  This sounds like it would be a book that would be of interest to many people, and all the reviews seem extremely positive towards this book.  I love that the reviews explain how the book is heartbreaking, but also humorous, and believe that others will also like that mix.

I don't think its fair that one type of book gets reviewed to death and other types get little to no coverage, but if more people are reading a certain genre of books than others its bound to happen. I think libraries are generally good at keeping books of all different genres to suit the needs of different patrons, so I don't believe that a lack of reviews impacts a library's collection too much.  Even when it comes to Ebook only books,  I think a lot of librarians (or the ones I worked with at least) read reviews on Goodreads and Amazon even, that aren't professional publications, to get an idea of what patrons might like, so I don't believe that lack of professional reviews impacts the collection too much.  I don't think I'd trust a review source that refuses to print negative content. I feel that both negative and positive reviews should be available so that the person seeking out the reviews has an opportunity to decide for themselves if they want to read something. There are so many classic books and movies that were once reviewed or received poorly, that people rave about today.  I think its so important to post the negative reviews because that gets the word out about these books and more people can read them and decide for themselves.

I personally love reading short reviews about a book before reading the book.  I like to know what other people thought of the book before reading it myself.  I'll never read a long review though because I don't want too much information - just a quick idea of what to expect when reading it.