A number of libraries have begun including user reviews on the item records in their online catalogues. For example, LINC Tasmania and Clarence Regional Library.
I think that this feature could be useful from the library's perspective as a way to increase user engagement and potentially increase circulation statistics. From a user perspective it could also be a useful way to identify books that they might like to borrow. While it is possible that users could be put off borrowing a book by a negative review, I think it is likely that the positive reviews will have a greater impact and encourage readers to borrow books that they might not otherwise notice. The ability to look at all user reviews, rather than only seeing reviews once you have clicked on an item, would be particularly beneficial for prompting users to try new authors or genres (eg. the Clarence Regoinal Library).
It don't see any problem with libraries providing this service, as long as the reviews are moderated to remove anything offensive, spoilers, irrelevant comments or spam.
My library does not provide this service, although it does have a 'What others are reading' section which provides lists of the most frequently borrowed titles, authors and subjects over the last 3 months. I think book reviews would be more useful for users, as they would be able to assess whether the reviewer has similar taste to them, and gain a better idea of whether they would also enjoy the book.
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