This issue of Science Education introduces the new section, "The Books," which signals the journal's interest in filling a need felt by its readership. Over the years, the Editorial Board has become concerned that the international field of science education has not been well served by the relatively scant attention paid to books by journals and other periodical publications. Although secondary sources and various library tools enable consumers to identify journal articles and conference papers when the latter are submitted to information data bases like ERIC, readers are not well supported in their efforts to locate information published in books and monographs of similar size: few journals in the field carry traditional book review sections, no journal offers lists of published books received, and there is no place for Institutes and Centers to publicize their informal monographs.
The two parts of "The Books" in Science Education will provide consumers with a valuable tool for accessing these materials in two ways. The first portion, "The Reviews," will consist of critical accounts of books selected by the editors from those submitted by publishers. The second portion, "Books Received," will list books received from commercial publishers and monographs received from research and development centers and institutes in universities and similar institutions. Each entry will be accompanied by an annotation of one or two sentences.
Although we do not wish to follow criteria slavishly, the following will guide our decisions to review or to list books we receive:
- Books describing recent research and developments in science education and related fields will be reviewed or listed. 2. Textbooks for science teacher education, as well as textbooks for general teacher education and graduate study in education, will be reviewed or listed if the editors judge them as offering novel or significant research-based perspectives. 3. Academic texts of general appeal to the science education community at universities and colleges, as well as some tertiary level textbooks that the editors judge useful to secondary school teachers, will be reviewed or listed. It is not anticipated that K-12 science textbooks will be reviewed or listed. 4. Books that speak to science in nonscientific ways and books that have promise for showing the relationship of science to other fields will be listed. 5. Publications received from research and development institutes, groups, and centers will be listed.