In January, 2013 the Companion to Irish Traditional Music achieved Outstanding Academic Title recognition among scholarly titles on the prestigious Choice Reviews (http://www.cro2.org). ranked No. 11 among books reviewed during the previous calendar year. For a title in Irish music this was extraordinary recognition from the academic library community.The list is quite selective, containing c. 10% 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 applied 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

The list cites only bibliographic information. The number and publication issue of the Choice review are also provided, to assist readers wishing detailed evaluations of the titles. In addition, Choice Reviews Online tags all reviews that have been designated as Outstanding Academic Titles.

The Companion was ranked no. 11 in the 2012 Choice Reviews’ OAT list of 644 titles
The book is 11th in the top 9% of the OAT selected titles
The book is 11th of c. 7,000 titles reviewed during 2012