The authors of this recently-published article investigated methods of evaluating scholarly books, using the field of journalism as a case study.

Neville, T.N. & Henry, D. B.  (2014).   Evaluating scholarly book publishers: A case study in the field of journalism.  Journal of  Academic Librarianship, 40, 379-387.   dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2014.05.005.

For example:

Table 10

Top 25 publishers by relative catalog inclusion rate for books published in 2007–2011

Rank	Publisher	# Titles	# Catalog inclusion (CI)	Catalog inclusion rate (CIR)	Relative catalog inclusion rate (RCIR)
1	University of California Press	1	93	93	1.81
2	Indiana University Press	1	84	84	1.64
3	University of Chicago Press	4	323	80.8	1.57
4	New York University Press	1	79	79	1.54
5	Verso Books	1	78	78	1.52
6	University of North Carolina Press	2	155	77.5	1.51
7	Louisiana State University Press	3	228	76	1.48
7	University of Missouri Press	2	152	76	1.48
9	University of Illinois Press	7	526	75.1	1.46
9	Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Incorporated	1	75	75	1.46
11	Princeton University Press	1	73	73	1.42
12	Counterpoint Press	1	72	72	1.40
12	Rutgers University Press	1	72	72	1.40
12	Stanford University Press	1	72	72	1.40
15	University of Minnesota Press	1	69	69	1.34
16	I B Tauris & Company Limited	4	274	68.5	1.33
17	University of Texas Press	1	68	68	1.32
18	Praeger Publishers	1	66	66	1.29
19	Ithaca Press	2	130	65	1.27
19	LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC	1	65	65	1.27
19	McGill-Queen's University Press	1	65	65	1.27
22	Intellect Limited	5	311	62.2	1.21
22	Michigan State University Press	1	62	62	1.21
22	Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Incorporated	1	62	62	1.21
25	Taylor & Francis Group	1	60	60	1.17

⁎

Method as described in Torres-Salinas and Moed (2009).