The Companion to Irish Traditional Music has been ranked 11th in a shortlist of 644 ‘Outstanding Academic Titles’ (OAT) chosen by a key US librarians’ resource, Choice Reviews Online. The shortlist was selected from a total of c. 7,000 academic reviews of books in all subject areas which were themselves chosen by Choice Reviews for critical comment during 2012 out of more than 25,000 submitted books. This means that the Companion is in the top 3% of these 25,000 titles. This is a great achievement for the Companion’s publisher, Cork University Press and indeed for a book dedicated to Irish Traditional music, and for its contributors.

Coinciding with this award is the Companion’s release on Friday, 1st February as an ebook:

• ibook
• kindle

Full information on the Companion’s contents is on the page comitm.com

This includes information on its launch in Dublin on November 24th. The words of the speakers at this event are published  on  comitm.com. This free access site presently carries an A-Z list of all the book’s articles (c. 1800), list of all writers (c. 200), a major category breakdown of the articles, and a full names index of all people and bands mentioned in the text (c. 5000 names).

www.companion.ie is designed to help readers to get the most out of the Companion. It should be valuable in teaching where it is necessary to draw related data from many different articles. It will progressively develop to include links from the listed topics to selected web references outside the Companion site.  Feedback is welcomed, as are links to other sites.

LAUNCH ADDRESSES – Royal Irish Academy, Dawson St., Dublin, November 24^th, 2011.

Choice Reviews Online

Current Reviews for Academic Libraries is the premier source for reviews of academic books, electronic media, and Internet resources of interest to those in higher education in the US. More than 35,000 librarians, faculty, and key decision makers rely on Choice magazine and Choice Reviews Online for collection development and scholarly research. Choice reaches almost every undergraduate college and university library in the United States, and enjoys a substantial international subscriber base. Each year it publishes more than 7,000 reviews that are typically the first comment on scholarly publications, are written by selected experts in the subject, and are brief but thorough, providing information, recommendations and ordering data (Choice review)