Book Review Digest Turns 100
November Marks a Century for Acclaimed Reference, Now Available in Full Text and Retrospective Versions

New York, New York, November 3, 2005
Book Review Digest now joins the distinguished company of reference icon Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature®, as an H.W. Wilson product in service to library users for more than 100 years.

An instant success when it was introduced in 1905, Book Review Digest is now available in both the familiar print form and on WilsonWeb online, as Book Review Digest Plus and Book Review Digest Retrospective: 1905-1982.

On WilsonWeb, Book Review Digest Plus brings users entries for more than 1,300,000 reviews (and growing with daily updates), covering more than 550,000 books. WilsonWeb's Book Review Digest Retrospective: 1905-1982 is a vast record of historical, sociological, and literary information, offering insight into how society first responded to groundbreaking works of fiction and nonfiction, early works by seminal authors, political treatises, and other important literature. The database covers some 300,000 books, citing some 1.5 million book reviews. Handy master records for each book include the title's essentials--author, descriptive summary, publisher, publication year, page count, ISBN, indicator of illustrations, and more--plus links to review excerpts and review citations. Virtually every book has at least one substantial review excerpt, presenting the most evaluative passages of the review, and most have two or more.

Book Review Digest was the third original reference produced by H.W. Wilson. The first was Cumulative Book Index, which ran from 1898 (the year the H.W. Wilson Company was founded) through 1999. The second, Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, began in 1901, and continues today online and in print, in several incarnations.

Free 30-day trials of Book Review Digest Plus and Book Review Digest Retrospective are available.