Outstanding Academic Titles 2020 archive

In December of each year Choice publishes its list of Outstanding Academic Titles. This prestigious list reflects the best in scholarly titles, both print and digital, reviewed by Choice during the previous year and brings with it the extraordinary recognition of the academic library community. The list is quite selective, containing approximately ten percent of some 5,000 works reviewed annually in Choice.

In naming a work an Outstanding Academic Title, the editors apply several criteria:
-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

While the full list is only available to subscribers to Choice Reviews or Choice magazine, we encourage you to sign up for our Outstanding Academic Titles enewsletter, where we send complimentary snippets of the award winning books in the list weekly, from December through June. Sign up here.

For Publishers: Choice OAT Seals

Choice notifies individual publishers about their selected titles by mail. The entire list is available for purchase. Books selected as OATs are eligible to bear an OAT cover seal.

Purchase Digital Seals
Purchase Physical Seals
Purchase the OAT List

Publishers, click here to learn about submitting titles to Choice for review.

2020 Outstanding Academic Titles featured list snippets:

Titles about Africa

Titles about Astronautics & Astronomy

OATS 2020: Our Most Read Reviews, Part 1

OATS 2020: Our Most Read Reviews, Part 2

Titles about Cinema and Film Studies

Titles about US politics presently

Flora & Fauna titles

Studies of Chinese History

Examinations of US Literature & Authors

Black History Month Titles

Reads Regarding Religion

Musically Inclined Titles

Gender and Women’s Studies Titles

US Law and Incarceration

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion