Following up on a post for a couple of weeks back, I'm pleased to point readers to the Texas Law Review's official launch of Dicta, their on-line book reviews section. Cribbing now from today's press release:
Today, the Texas Law Review launched a website to publish reviews of legal books, Dicta. This website—the first devoted only to legal book reviews—responds to the observed decline in law review publication of legal book reviews. This void was illustrated by Professor Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas School of Law in his essay, The Vanishing Book Review in Student-Edited Law Reviews and Potential Responses (87 Texas L. Rev.1205 (2009)). While the top twenty law reviews devoted over 2,200 pages to book reviews in 1987–1988, they devoted less than half of this space to book reviews in 2007–2008. The new Dicta website is designed to alleviate this problem, allowing professors and practitioners to share their thoughts and recommendations about legal books of interest through short reviews published online. Dicta is currently accepting proposals for online book reviews to be edited and published online during the 2011–2012 school year. Proposals, including a short abstract and CV, may be submitted to Stephen Fraser at [email protected]. More information about submissions is available at Dicta’s Guidelines page.
I think this a most exciting development -- and it has the potential to re-ignite interest in book reviews.
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