ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 150/C&RL News Choice at 30 By Patricia E. Sabosik Evaluating materials that advance knowledge and challenge norms A nniversaries are a time for reflection, and as the staff at Choice celebrates our 30th anniversary with the publication o f the March 1994 issue, I thought it a perfect opportunity to review with C&RL News readers what w e have accom­ plished and to bring perspective to our reviewing program. Com­ ments here are taken from editori­ als published in the Septem ber 1993 and March 1994 issues o f Choice, as w ell as comments from the Choice Editorial Board, a stand­ ing committee o f ACRL, that ap­ pear in the March 1994 issue. The American Library Associa­ tion, with a grant from the Council o f Library Resources, began Choice as a service for aca­ demic librarians faced with selection decisions as they built up college and university libraries in the 1960s and 1970s. ACRL assumed man­ agement o f Choice at its inception and contin­ ues oversight through ACRL committees and the Board o f Directors. In the past 30 years, Choice has review ed more than 194,000 books, 2,300 periodicals, 4.000 nonprint items, 100 databases, and pub­ lished 300 bibliographic essays listing more than 25.000 additional works. Our record o f book selection and reviewing remains ambitious and noteworthy. Choice reviewers number 2,700 college and university faculty w h o are actively teaching in the subject areas that they review. Another 300 are academic reference librarians w h o contrib­ ute the reference reviews. Our reviewers rep­ resent approximately 860 academic institutions in the U.S. and Canada; 42% o f them have been review ing for 10 years or more. The audience that Choice serves, students enrolled in colleges and universities, was 4.2 million in 1963; this population more than tripled to 14.4 million students by 1993 according to the Chronicle o f Higher Education. The publishing industry and higher education grew to meet the educational needs o f the post-World War II birth cohort. Though the number o f review s published has remained steady for more than 20 years, our editors are continually modifying review cov­ erage to include changing technol­ ogy and fields o f study. Much o f this change is precipitated by the sociological, political, and scien­ tific events that shape our world. In respon se to these w o rld events, new disciplines em erged or matured during our past 30 years, e.g., the history o f science, computer and information sciences, office tech­ nology, consumer marketing and advertising, comparative politics, film studies, black stud­ ies, w o m en ’s studies, environmental studies, and the grow th o f interdisciplinary studies across all areas. Th ey reflect a grow ing appli­ cation o f technology and changes in our social fabric. Books in all o f these fields have been review ed in the pages o f Choice, and their in­ clusion reflects the selection skill as w ell as the biases o f the subject editors on our masthead. The books reviewed, and the reviews them­ selves, reflect the thinking o f the time. Taken together, each issue o f Choice is a collection o f contemporary perspectives. Scholarship, h o w ­ ever, is dynamic: new events and discoveries challenge and supersede established ideas. The challenge for Choice and its editorial board is to be as dynamic and contemporary as schol­ arship, continuing to evaluate material that advances know ledge and challenges traditional norms and schools o f thought. ■ Patricia E. Sabosik is editor and publisher o f Choice magaziney e-mail: sabosik@choice.jvnc.net mailto:sabosik@choice.jvnc.net