The Role of Book Reviews in the Academic Book Ecosystem – A Report

At Arcadia Fund.

"In 2020, we asked our summer intern, Katie Phillips (at the time, a final year MSc student in Archaeological Science at University College London) to research the role of scholarly book reviews, with a focus on reviews of open access books. Over her six-week internship, Katie tested Arcadia co-founder Peter Baldwin’s suggestion that major book review publications overlook open access books, and examined the importance and relevance of book reviews to open access publishing.

"Katie reviewed a decade’s worth of book reviews from the London Review of Books and LA Review of Books. She found that open access books have been reviewed in both publications, but only rarely. Through interviews with publishers, librarians and academics, Katie also contextualised her findings with fascinating anecdotes and views that shed light on the academic publishing system."

(via Gary Price, InfoDocket, Library Journal)