Congratulations to Professor John Fea for the continuing success of his book, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction (Westminster John Knox Press 2011). The American Library Association selected his book for their list of “Outstanding Academic Titles” in their publication Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. The works selected for “Outstanding Academic Titles” represent only 10% of the works reviewed by Choice each year. Congrats, Dr. Fea!
Choice describes the selection process as follows at their webpage:
Every year in the January issue, in print and online, Choice publishes a list of Outstanding Academic Titles that were reviewed during the previous calendar year. This prestigious list reflects the best in scholarly titles reviewed by Choice and brings with it the extraordinary recognition of the academic library community.
The list is quite selective: it contains approximately ten percent of some 7,000 works reviewed in Choice each year. Choice editors base their selections on the reviewer’s evaluation of the work, the editor’s knowledge of the field, and the reviewer’s record. The list was known as Outstanding Academic Books until 2000. The new name reflects an increase in reviews of electronic products and Internet sites.
In awarding Outstanding Academic Titles, the editors apply several criteria to reviewed titles:
- overall excellence in presentation and scholarship
- importance relative to other literature in the field
- distinction as a first treatment of a given subject in book or electronic form
- originality or uniqueness of treatment
- value to undergraduate students
- importance in building undergraduate library collections
