Book Reviews  Tags: book_reviews  

As a student or faculty member of UIUC you can access ALL of the library's databases, e-journals, and electronic books from anywhere in the world. But, you need to first "prove" that you are affiliated with University of Illinois by either logging in via the proxy server or running the VPN client on your computer.

Read instructions on using the VPN (Virtual Private Networking) system.

There are several things to consider when you are looking for book reviews and choosing a source.

• What date range are you looking for? Online resources generally only contain materials from the last few decades. If you are looking for more historical book reviews, you should probably check a print source.
• Do you need a full-text review that you can print online or would a citation to a print review work for you?
• Are you looking for a review of a literary text? Movie review? Other types of reviews?

Read the brief descriptions of the available sources with these questions in mind and you'll be more likely to choose a source that will suit your needs.

Go to Academic Search Premier
Academic Search Premier is a multi-disciplinary database containing citations to book reviews across a number of fields. It is a good starting point for finding book reviews in core scholarly journals. This source has the added advantage of providing many of the book reviews in full text.
Search Tips: Can search a variety of ways, including by Author, Title or Keyword. To limit to reviews, below the search bars in the "Limit your results" box, under Document Type, select one or more of the types of reviews, which include Book Review, Entertainment Review, Literature Review, Poetry Review and Product Review.

Go to ArticleFirst
ArticleFirst contains a variety of book reviews in periodicals, newspapers and popular magazines. Coverage goes back 20 years or more, but ArticleFirst is not as comprehensive or scholarly as other reviewing sources. It is good for finding recent full text reviews.
Search Tips: Search by the title of the book and the author's last name. You may retrieve a few things other than reviews, so read the records carefully.

Go to Book Review Index
The electronic version of the print Book Review Index includes citations to reviews of books, periodicals and books-on-tape appearing in over 500 publications from the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe. They have a wide subject area covering popular, academic and professional interest publications. Most publications, except for poetry and children's books, must be 50 pages long to be included. The electronic version only includes citations to reviews, not the full text. Like the print version, the electronic source is comprehensive and a very good starting point for finding reviews of all types of books.
Search Tips: Can search by Title, Author, or Journal and under "Advanced Search" can search in a variety of other ways, including by Keyword or Reviewer. Under the search bars there are also a set of limiters to use when searching, including limiting by Date, Review Type and Length of Review.

Go to Current Contents
Current Contents contains citations to reviews of academic books in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities from around the world. Current Contents is good to use in finding reviews for highly specialized and scholarly books. Current Contents also includes some full-text coverage of reviews.
Search Tips: Can search a variety of ways, including by Keyword, Author or Title. To limit to items with reviews, below the search bar, check the box next to the words "Review Articles."

Go to Expanded Academic Index
Expanded Academic Index is a multi-disciplinary database containing citations to book reviews of all types of books. It shares many of the features of Academic Search Premier (EBSCO) product with access to reviews in core academic publications, many of which can be accessed in full text.
Search Tips: To limit to reviews, use the Advanced Search and type the author, title or keyword you need in the first search bar and then use the word "review." Keep in mind that when searching this way you may get results that are not reviews.

Go to LexisNexis Academic
LexisNexis Academic contains a variety of resources to search for book reviews in newspapers and popular magazines. Using the Guided News Search major papers, magazines, and journals can be searched, and much of the coverage goes back 10 years or more. Lexis Nexis is not as comprehensive or scholarly as other reviewing sources, but is good for finding very recent full text reviews for major publications.
Search Tips: The best way to find reviews is to use the Guided News Search feature and search by the title of the publication along with the word "review."

Go to MagillOnLiterature Plus
MagillOnLiterature Plus is a literary database containing plot summaries, author biographies, and reviews of fiction and non-fiction pieces of literature. It is a good database to use to find reviews of literary works, although it is not a comprehensive database of all literary works. Coverage is mostly from 1985 to present, but some reviews back to 1980 are available.
Search Tips: The best way to find reviews is to search by book title or author and with the word "review."