MAA Reviews

This page describes the MAA's list of Recommendations for Undergraduate Libraries. To see what books are in the list, go to our advanced search page, enter some search criteria, scroll down and click on the "Show only books in the BLL" box.

About the Basic Library List

The MAA's Basic Library List is a list of books recommended by the Association for purchase by college and university libraries. Books that are part of the BLL have that fact indicated in search results and on their "book details" page. The Advanced Search engine allows you to restrict your search to books that are in the BLL, and that is the primary way to access the list.

Many books in the BLL have ratings contributed by the BLL Committee indicating the strength of their recommendation. Click on the link to "BLL Ratings" below for more details.

At this point, all the books in the 1991 version of the list and which are still in print have been added to the database. The BLL Committee is currently adding new books and revising the list.

The current chair of the Basic Library List Committee is Paul Schuette.