Booklist

About Booklist

Booklist is the book review journal of the American Library Association (ALA), published from the Association's headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in January 1905, it has been published by ALA for more than 120 years and is widely viewed as offering the most reliable reviews to help libraries decide what to buy — and to help library patrons and students decide what to read, view, or listen to. Today Booklist comprises two print magazines, an extensive website and database at booklistonline.com, e-newsletters, webinars, podcasts, and other resources supporting librarians in collection development and readers' advisory. For the librarians who build the collections of America's public, school, and academic libraries, Booklist's starred reviews and trusted recommendations are an indispensable professional tool.

Founding in 1905

Booklist began publication in January 1905, when the American Library Association's publishing board introduced it to "meet an evident need by issuing a current buying list of recent books with brief notes designed to assist librarians in selection." The need was real: American public libraries were expanding rapidly in the early twentieth century, fueled by Carnegie library construction and growing public demand for books, and librarians needed a trustworthy guide to the flood of new publications. An annual subscription cost 50 cents, and the young journal was subsidized by a $100,000 grant from the Carnegie Foundation — the philanthropy known for its public and university library endowments.

In its earliest form, Booklist was modest: its entries were the briefest 25- to 50-word summaries, little more than annotated buying lists. But the concept was powerful. By centralizing the work of evaluating new books — work that no individual library could do comprehensively on its own — Booklist gave even the smallest libraries access to professional selection guidance. It was, from the start, a cooperative enterprise: the profession pooling its expertise for the benefit of every library.

The Move to Chicago and Early Growth

In 1913, the Booklist offices were moved from Boston to the ALA headquarters in Chicago's McCormick mansion, cementing the journal's place at the institutional heart of the American Library Association. The move reflected ALA's own consolidation in Chicago, which would remain the association's home base for more than a century. From Chicago, Booklist's editors coordinated a growing network of reviewers and managed a publication whose influence was spreading to libraries across the country.

By the 1930s, the reviews had become more in-depth, and the journal began to include articles alongside its reviews — a sign of its evolution from a buying list into a genuine review journal. In October 1939, just weeks after the start of World War II, Booklist published an article entitled "Books for the 'Long and Calm View': On the Crisis, Its Background and Implications to the United States," intended to address "the demand for impartial books without the emotionalism of propaganda." Even amid world crisis, the journal's editors saw their role as helping library patrons find answers while presenting various viewpoints — an early expression of the profession's commitment to intellectual freedom.

The Mid-Century Review Journal

From the 1950s to the 1960s, Booklist reviews were limited to 150 words — generally three long sentences — and the production process belonged to another era: reviews were handwritten in pencil on yellow legal paper, edited, and typed up for the printer. Artistic design choices were minimal, with the only visual change between issues being the plain cover's solid color. The austerity of the format reflected the journal's utilitarian mission: it existed to deliver reliable judgments about books, efficiently and without ornament.

Yet within those constraints, Booklist's reviewers developed a distinctive critical voice — concise, authoritative, and attuned to the needs of working librarians. The 150-word review became a demanding literary form in its own right: in three sentences, a reviewer had to convey what a book was about, assess its quality, and indicate its audience. Generations of librarians learned to read these compressed judgments with expert fluency, and the journal's starred reviews — marking titles of exceptional merit — became coveted honors in the publishing world.

The Review Operation Today

Today's Booklist is a far larger operation than the modest buying list of 1905. It comprises two print magazines, an extensive website and database, e-newsletters, webinars, podcasts, and other resources — a multi-platform review enterprise serving the full spectrum of library work. Its reviewers evaluate books for adults, young adults, and children, along with audiobooks, graphic novels, and other media, giving collection-development librarians comprehensive coverage of the publishing landscape.

The journal's specialties, as it describes them, include book recommendations, readers' advisory, collection development, weeding tips, book reviews, and library science — the practical disciplines of building and maintaining library collections. Its staff of more than a hundred people, working from ALA's Chicago headquarters, coordinates thousands of reviews each year, maintaining the reliability and consistency that have made Booklist the profession's most trusted review source for over a century.

Booklist Online and the Database

Booklist Online, at booklistonline.com, extends the journal's century of reviewing into the digital age. The website and its associated database give subscribers searchable access to the journal's vast archive of reviews — more than a century of professional judgments about books, accumulated title by title. For a librarian deciding whether to order a backlist title, checking a review from decades past, or researching the reception of an author's earlier work, the database is an irreplaceable resource.

The digital platform also carries the journal's newer content forms: e-newsletters delivering reviews and features to subscribers' inboxes, webinars on collection development and readers' advisory topics, and podcasts extending the Booklist conversation to audio. The migration from yellow legal paper to a searchable digital database represents the journal's most profound transformation since its founding — but the core product, the trusted review, remains unchanged.

Booklist Editors' Choice

Among Booklist's signature annual features is Booklist Editors' Choice, a yearly list compiled by the journal's editorial staff honoring the best adult and youth books, videos, and audiobooks of the year. The list is organized into nine categories: adult and youth fiction, adult and youth nonfiction, youth picture books, adult and youth graphic novels, and adult and youth audiobooks. For publishers, librarians, and readers, the Editors' Choice list is one of the year's most anticipated compilations of distinguished titles.

The Editors' Choice list distills the journal's year-round reviewing into a definitive annual statement — the titles its editors judge most outstanding across every category they cover. Like the starred review, selection for Editors' Choice carries real weight in the book world: it signals to librarians nationwide that a title deserves a place in their collections, and it gives readers a trusted guide to the year's essential books.

Readers' Advisory and Collection Development

Booklist's influence extends beyond selection into the daily work of connecting readers with books. Its readers'-advisory coverage — the art and science of matching patrons with their next great read — gives public librarians the tools, lists, and genre knowledge they need to serve diverse reading tastes. Features on genres from mystery to romance to science fiction, on reading trends, and on serving specific audiences help librarians become better reading guides for their communities.

In collection development — the discipline of building library collections that serve community needs within budget constraints — Booklist is the profession's standard reference. Its reviews inform purchasing decisions at thousands of libraries; its coverage of weeding (the systematic removal of outdated or worn materials) addresses the other half of collection management; and its attention to diverse and inclusive collections supports librarians' efforts to build shelves that reflect the communities they serve. Few publications are so directly tied to the material reality of what sits on library shelves.

The American Library Association Connection

As an ALA publication, Booklist is part of the institutional fabric of the American Library Association, the oldest and largest library association in the world, founded in 1876. Its offices remain in the ALA headquarters in Chicago, alongside the association's other publishing operations, including American Libraries, the association's flagship magazine. The relationship is symbiotic: ALA gives Booklist institutional stability and a direct connection to the profession, while Booklist gives ALA members one of their most valued practical benefits.

The journal's longevity within ALA — more than 120 years of continuous publication — makes it one of the association's oldest and most durable enterprises. It has survived depressions, wars, the rise of television, the digital revolution, and the transformation of the publishing industry itself, adapting its formats while preserving its essential function. In an association devoted to the idea that information matters, Booklist is the purest expression of that ideal: organized, reliable knowledge about books, placed in the service of readers.

Legacy: A Century of Trusted Reviews

Booklist's legacy is written on the shelves of America's libraries. For more than twelve decades, its reviews have guided the selection decisions that determine what books are available to the public — which novels reach small-town readers, which nonfiction informs students, which children's books delight young readers, which diverse voices find their audience. The cumulative effect of those millions of individual selection decisions, guided by Booklist's trusted judgments, is incalculable.

From 25-word summaries subsidized by a Carnegie grant to a multi-platform review enterprise with a searchable century-deep database, Booklist has grown with the profession it serves while holding fast to its founding purpose: helping librarians choose well. In an age of algorithmic recommendations and overwhelming choice, the human judgment of a trusted reviewer — concise, knowledgeable, and independent — remains as valuable as it was in January 1905. That is Booklist's enduring achievement, and its promise for the century ahead.