The textbooks included in the study were 94 introduction to criminology textbooks, while the journals were Criminology, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Law and Society Review, American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, and Social Forces. The findings show that scholars have borrowed few insights from recent criminology textbooks. The 45 textbooks appearing before 1966 were cited far more often in the older journals than the 49 textbooks published between 1976 and 1985. The declining influence of criminology textbooks may be attributed to the fact that criminologists now have more publishing outlets than their predecessors, that professional prestige has gone primarily to criminologists who publish in journals rather than to those who write textbooks, and that textbook materials has been simplified because of the declining reading abilities of students. 1 table, 11 notes, 41 references, and 1 appendix