Where to find the book reviews?

MURÁNYI Péter

Könyvtári Figyelő (Library Review) vol. 16. (52.) 2006. no. 1. pp. 9-30.

The article investigates the Hungarian information sources where book reviews of the past few years can be found. The availability of book review records related to literary works was examined on the basis of book reviews published in a newspaper (Népszabadság) and in a weekly periodical (Élet és Irodalom). The results were then compared with the data of a survey conducted in 2002 by Géza Vasy that examined the number of critiques and reviews published in 12 literary magazines. In the case studies of the pre0sent article, the author searched for reviews of three non-fiction works and two recently published novels, using every possible searching tools and information sources. The results show that an average library user would need to undertake very time-consuming research work in order to find the reviews of a book with a relative completeness. Two international examples of efficient book review searching are presented: the Book Review Index (BRI) and the B ook Review Digest Plus (BRD+), databases in which the author did searches for reviews of books by Hungarian writers. As a conclusion, the author proposes the idea of a Hungarian catalogue of book reviews, either set up as an independent database, or as part of an already existing database.