I’m a big fan of Library Journal. I review books in the social sciences for LJ and always enjoy reading Barbara Fister’s Peer to Peer Review column, but a recent article in this publication made me cringe. Liverpool’s Discovery, the first in what LJ calls “a series of articles coming this spring devoted to new developments in major tools for libraries” started off as a story about librarians at University of Liverpool’s Sydney Jones Library exploring different discovery tools, but then quickly turned into a “let’s talk about how awesome EBSCO’s new discovery tool is” session. It was free advertising for EBSCO, and was in no way helpful to librarians who are struggling to decide whether or not to have their institutions jump on the discovery tool bandwagon. I was so disappointed! I turn to LJ for insightful commentary on current issues facing libraries. If I want a sales pitch I’ll go to the EBSCO chicken lunch at ALA’s Annual Conference.
2 Comments