From: Brad.Scott_at_tandf.co.uk
Dear Librarian
I am the Electronic Development Manager at Routledge and am preparing
a paper for the forthcoming Digital Resources in the Humanities
Conference (DRH99) to be held at Kings College, London in September
<http://drh.org.uk>. This paper is titled 'Reviewing Reviews of
Electronic Products: How Reliable Are They?', and has been prompted by
a growing awareness that many published reviews of electronic products
are inaccurate and misrepresent them. My paper is intended as a means
of illustrating to the library and academic community that there is an
issue here, will suggest reasons why this is so, and make
recommendations for review criteria.
In preparing this, I am keen to have input from librarians, so have
put together a few short questions and would be extremely grateful if
you or a colleague could spend a few minutes on them:
1. How important are published reviews of electronic resources in
informing your decision to purchase them??
- Very important
- Moderately important
- Moderately unimportant
- Very unimportant
2. Are there certain categories of electronic products for which
reviews are more or less valuable? If so, which?
3. Which sources do you find most useful for reviews of electronic
products?
4. What are you looking for in a review to help inform your purchasing
decision?
Any replies quoted in the paper will be anonymised.
Thanks for your help.
Best wishes
Brad
_________________________________________________________________
Brad Scott
Electronic Development Manager
Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane
London EC4P 4EE
Tel: * 44 171 842 2134
Fax: * 44 171 842 2309
Email: <Brad.Scott_at_routledge.co.uk>
Web: <http://www.routledge.com/routledge/electronic/default.html>
_________________________________________________________________
Lynn Sipe lsipe_at_usc.edu
Director, Collection Resources & 213/740-2929
Director, Information Delivery Organization & Retrieval 213/749-1221 (fax)
University Libraries
Information Services Division
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0182
Received on Tue Aug 10 1999 - 17:14:50 EDT