| Abstract: | This study examines the relationship between the reviewing media and classical music recording collections in libraries in order to determine if reviews are an important selection tool for these collections. As previous studies have shown that there is a correlation between the number of reviews a work receives and the number of libraries owning that work, it is hypothesized that this relationship holds true for classical music recordings. A second hypothesis is that a correlation exists between the nature of the reviews, positive or negative, a recording receives and its ownership by libraries. The number and direction of a random sample of two hundred classical recordings released in 1989 is tallied from the review index in MLA Notes, as is the number of OCLC libraries owning each item. These data suggest that there is no correlation between the number of reviews a work receives and the number of libraries owning that work, nor between the number of positive reviews a work receives and its ownership by libraries. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed, and further questions are raised. |
