African-American reference books and the reviewing media

African-American reference books are often subject to exclusionary book reviewing practices. A sampling of 148 African-American reference titles published between 1980 and 1990 was selected from Nathaniel Davis’ Afro-American Reference (1985), Rosemary M. Stevenson’s Index to Afro-American Reference Resources (1987), and the “Current Bibliography” series compiled by the author for the Slack American Literature Forum (1986-1991). Reviews of these materials were analyzed for recommendation statements, evaluative content, coverage of titles in the subject field, and duplication between reviewing media. These findings are compared to similar studies to provide a theoretical context for analysis of criteria used by reviewers.