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Choice Reviews is the searchable database of scholarly book and resource reviews published by Choice, a publishing unit of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), which is a division of the American Library Association (ALA). It is built for academic librarians who select books and electronic resources for college and university collections, and it sits within the wider field of library science.
What Is Choice Reviews?
Choice Reviews is the online archive of reviews of academic monographs produced by Choice, which was founded in 1964. Choice describes more than 200,000 reviews in the archive, and the Choice Reviews product page states that 350+ new reviews are added monthly, with the database updated daily. Because it is built around scholarly titles rather than consumer ratings, it is a tool for collection development: deciding which books and resources a library should acquire.
Who Runs Choice Reviews and What Does It Cover?
Choice is a publishing unit of ACRL, the academic and research library division of the ALA. According to its About page, Choice serves 2,400 institutions worldwide and publishes about 4,200 new reviews per year.
Alongside the review archive, Choice’s published materials include:
- Outstanding Academic Title winners: titles that Choice recognizes within its reviewed output.
- U.S. College Book Price Information: an annual study listed among Choice’s features.
- Bibliographic essays: one of the tools Choice offers librarians, which can support collection building in fields such as information science.
How Do You Search and Use Choice Reviews?
The Choice Reviews product page describes these main features for selectors:
- Searchable archive: search the full set of reviews and add titles to a GOBI cart.
- WorldCat links: direct links from records to WorldCat.
- Lists: create lists of titles, share them with others and download them to Excel.
- Choice Cardstack: a polling and commenting feature for gathering colleagues’ opinions on titles.
- Alerts: save searches and create customizable user alerts.
Libraries reach these features through their institution’s access to the product; check with your library for how it is configured locally.
How Does Choice Reviews Compare With Other Review Sources?
Choice Reviews is aimed at academic collections and academic books. Other review services serve different audiences, such as health sciences or public libraries, so many selectors use more than one source. Comparing the scope and audience of each service against your own collection policy is the practical way to decide which to rely on. For another example of how libraries pool access to scholarly resources, see the Iraqi Virtual Science Library guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Choice Reviews?
It is the review database from Choice, a publishing unit of ACRL, used by academic libraries to evaluate scholarly books and resources for their collections.
How many reviews does Choice Reviews contain?
Choice describes more than 200,000 reviews in the archive, with 350+ new reviews added monthly and the database updated daily.
How many institutions does Choice serve?
The Choice About page states that Choice serves 2,400 institutions worldwide.
Does Choice Reviews work with GOBI and Excel?
Yes. The product page says users can add titles to a GOBI cart and download lists to Excel, and that records link directly to WorldCat.
When was Choice founded?
The Choice About page gives 1964 as its founding year.
Sources
All sources were checked on November 7, 2026.
- Choice (ACRL/ALA). “Choice Reviews.” https://www.choice360.org/products/choice-reviews/
- Choice (ACRL/ALA). “About Choice.” https://www.choice360.org/about/
- Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). “Choice.” American Library Association. https://www.ala.org/acrl/choice
