MOVING TO FRONT FROM MAY 16--AN EYE-OPENING SET OF COMMENTS, MORE WELCOME
A philosopher elsewhere, who is also a book review editor at a journal, writes:
Over the last few years, publishers having been increasingly pushing a policy of only providing digital copies of books for review in journals. This is making the book reviews editor’s job more difficult, since it is now quite common to find that a potential reviewer refuses to review the book if only digital copy is made available, thus further reducing the already small pool of potential reviewers. The fact that people are refusing of course also indicates that it makes the reviewer’s job more onerous. It is difficult to think of a good faith rationale for this on behalf of the press other than a money-saving one, and it is the already unpaid reviewer who is paying a further price for doing an important job.
I was unaware of this development. How common is this? I would certainly decline to review any book for which there was no hard copy. I'm not surprised to hear I'm not alone on that front.
