Favorite Web Sites: Book Reviews
The web sites featured this month have been critically evaluated and selected
by the IU Northwest librarians as well as a group of academic and public librarians
across the United States who compile a yearly Best
Free Reference Web Sites List for the American
Library Association .Here is a list of
selection
criteria initially created by the MARS Best Free Websites Task Force
to choose these sites. The Library hopes our readers will find these web
sites useful for locating reliable, accurate and authoritative information
on the Internet.
The database contains over 600,000 full-text reviews from
such respected reviewing periodicals as Choice,
Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus
Reviews, Booklist and Horn Book Magazine.
Here are instructions for obtaining these reviews. At the web site's
main page, enter the book title, author or keyword information in the
Quick Search box and click Submit. The next screen will display a
title list. If the specific title has a review, a star appears to the
left of the title. To see the review(s), click the title link. At the
next screen, select the Title Reviews tab to read the available
reviews. In addition to the full-text reviews, this area also provides
citations and clickable links to book reviews located in other
reviewing sources such as the Chicago Tribune
and the New York Times Book Review. (NOTE:
This web site is only available to IU Northwest students, faculty and staff
from IU Northwest campus computers and off campus through a VPN connection.)
BookSpot.com is an in-depth web portal for bibliophiles, librarians
and anyone interested in reading. Best seller lists, pre-publication
alerts, book club titles and read-alikes are all available here. This
web resource also features book reviews, literary criticism, book
awards, poetry and much more. BookSpot is part of the StartSpot
Network, a family "Spot" sites (e.g. TravelSpot, LibrarySpot and other
major categories). In comparison with commercial book sites, BookSpot
is superior and its lack of annoying pop-up boxes increases its
appeal. (This revised summary used with permission from the MARS
Best Free Web Sites Committee.)
This web site provides the most comprehensive information on the
book industry by including up-to-date news, author tour information,
guides to literary events and book reviews from Library Journal,
Publishers Weekly and the Boston Book Review.
The electronic version of the New York Times is the
most in-depth online newspaper on the Web today. Updated frequently
throughout the day, the New York Times' web site offers
comprehensive and detailed coverage on the most important national and
international news, business, technology, sports and the arts. The web
site includes a separate Books section which contains complete
full-text book reviews and best seller lists featured in the weekly
print edition of the New York Times Book Review. Users
are required to register for free in order to access all information
provided by the site. This registration also allows you to access the
newspaper's web archives for over 500,000 articles dating back to
January 1996. Full-text articles published within the past seven days
can be accessed for free. Articles posted after one week provide the
user with an abstract only. However, these articles can be found at
the IU Northwest Library in paper or on microfilm. Registered users can also
sign up to receive e-mail updates on specific topics such as new
books, breaking news, new movies or today's headlines.
Oxford Reference Premium Brings a Wealth of
Information to Your Desktop
The IU Northwest Library recently upgraded its subscription to Oxford
Reference Online to Oxford Reference Premium.
The Premium collection contains:
- All Core collection titles plus 18 titles from the Oxford
Companions series
- Over 919,000 entries with 50,000 longer in-depth signed articles
with bibliographies
- Over 20,000 quotations from the Oxford Dictionary of
Quotations
- Nearly 5500 illustrations, including line diagrams, maps and
tables
- Over 36,000 essential bibliographies
- 1,400 external web links
- Enhanced search functions to access results by category
This web reference resource is updated regularly with new titles,
editions, web links, illustrations and bibliographies. Users can also
view sample images from the Visual English Dictionary.
IU Northwest students, faculty and staff can use Oxford Reference
Premium through IU Northwest campus computers or off campus via a VPN
connection by going to the
IU Northwest Library's
Electronic Information Page. At the main menu, choose the All
Databases Listed Alphabetically link under the Electronic
Resources heading. At the next screen, click Oxford
Reference Online.
Spanish Language Encyclopedia Now Included in Encyclopaedia
Britannica Online
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online now provides a
full-text Spanish encyclopedia as part of its subscription.
Enciclopedia Universal en Espanol is the most comprehensive
electronic encyclopedia entirely in the Spanish language. It features
over 47,000 articles plus 8,300 photos and images. This web resource
also contains an atlas focusing on world countries, maps,
statistics, major world cities and distribution of languages and
religions. This excellent online tool is perfect for native Spanish
speakers, bilingual students and anyone learning Spanish.
IU Northwest students, faculty and staff can access Enciclopedia
Universal en Espanol from any IU Northwest campus computer or off
campus via a VPN connection by going to
spanish.eb.com .
, Library News Web Editor
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