Current Bengali Book Reviews: a Study of Comprehensiveness, Currency and Publishers' Participation

Abstract

Book Review is an excellent tool both for publicity and collection development. In a country like India, where the regional language publishing is much significant, the local book review media plays an imperative role in this respect. This article reports the results of a quantitative study of the contents of reviews of Bengali titles appeared during the initial five and half years in the new millennium. Four Bengali newspapers with weekly book review pages, one reputed literary magazine in Bengali and a group of twenty little magazines of literary importance have been chosen for study. Reflections of titles and participation of publishers in local book review media in terms of the comprehensiveness and currency of review, identification of marginalized and prolific titles and publishers in terms of single and multiple appearances including the patterns of reflections of subjects and price of the reviewed titles are covered in this study. The study reveals that the local book review media is lacking in the comprehensiveness and currency factors. Prolific appearances of titles and publishers in more than one source of review simultaneously are not usual phenomena in local book review media.