While the reviews may still be useful, they are often very short and may not contain as much critical evaluation as other sources. If you are not familiar with a particular title, most of the indexes listed below contain a word count of each review. This makes it very easy to discern the long from the short reviews. Also, some of the indexes include citations to book reviews from journals in specific disciplines, like The Journal of American History . These are excellent reviews to consult because they are most often written by experts in the fields.
Access is by author, title, and subject.
Excerpts of the reviews are included. It should be noted that the majority of the reviews indexed do not come from scholarly, academic journals. Author and title indexes are provided. No excerpts or ratings of the reviews are provided. Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature is produced by the same publisher, H.W. Wilson, which publishes Book Review Digest.