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Exploring Goodreads reviews for book impact assessment

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  • Wang, Kai
  • Liu, Xiaojuan
  • Han, Yutong

Abstract

Online book reviews reflect readers’ attitudes and opinions and serve as a data source for book impact assessment. Most research has only focused on the number of ratings and reviews to assess the impact of books. However, it is necessary to more thoroughly explore online book reviews, to analyze the viewpoints and sentiments expressed in them and the identity and motivation of the reviewers in order to evaluate the value of different types of book reviews. In this study, we collect Goodreads reviews of books indexed by the Book Citation Index and consider them according to the following three aspects: the popularity of highly cited books in Goodreads, the influence of reviewer roles (of author, librarian, and ordinary user) on book reviews, and the emotions and opinions behind reviewers’ ratings. Results consider the number of books reviewed in different disciplines, the variations in ratings of highly cited and non-highly cited books, differences in book reviews given by the reviewer roles, and the way reviewers express their sentiments about the books. The study concludes that if online reviews are to be used as indicators of book impact assessment, key considerations should include the subject discipline, the reviewer's role, and the sentiment polarity.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Kai & Liu, Xiaojuan & Han, Yutong, 2019. "Exploring Goodreads reviews for book impact assessment," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 874-886.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:13:y:2019:i:3:p:874-886
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2019.07.003
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Mike Thelwall & Kayvan Kousha, 2017. "Goodreads: A social network site for book readers," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(4), pages 972-983, April.
    2. Kayvan Kousha & Mike Thelwall, 2016. "Can Amazon.com reviews help to assess the wider impacts of books?," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 67(3), pages 566-581, March.
    3. n/a, 2015. "Book Reviews," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4).
    4. Kayvan Kousha & Mike Thelwall & Mahshid Abdoli, 2017. "Goodreads reviews to assess the wider impacts of books," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(8), pages 2004-2016, August.
    5. Qingqing Zhou & Chengzhi Zhang & Star X. Zhao & Bikun Chen, 2016. "Measuring book impact based on the multi-granularity online review mining," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(3), pages 1435-1455, June.
    6. n/a, 2016. "Book Reviews," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4).
    7. P�ivi Oinas & Samuli Lepp�l�, 2013. "Views on Book Reviews," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(10), pages 1785-1789, November.
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