Lesson 3 Reader's Advisory - NoveList and NoveList K-8

Discovery Exercise:

1: Use the Read-Alike features in NoveList or NoveList K-8 to find several new authors or titles that you might like to read based on your favorite books. How accurate do you think these recommendations are? How about the Series recommendations?

The first thing I learned using NoveList is that there are two Elizabeth Chadwicks, both historical romance writers. What are the odds of that?  I chose the Elizabeth Chadwick that writes Historical Romance/Historical Fiction set in the Middle Ages not the other one!  I thought the explanation of the work of Chadwick was on target.  It has been a while since I have curled up with a good historical romance/historical fiction book.  I will check out one of the Read-alikes authors recommended:  Roberta Gellis, Anya Seton, Gillian Bradshaw, Judith Tarr and Madeline Hunter.  Suggested titles were also listed for each author of those most comparable to Chadwick as well as how the authors might differ in style and setting.  If there was a chronological order for specific titles that was indicated as well.  And I do like to read things in the order intended!!  Titles were linked to more detailed information about a specific title. 

2: Save several of those selections to your folder.

You need to click on a title link in order to place the title in a folder.  That is good because the reviews are available by selecting the Reviews tab from the title page. The Lists & Articles tab on the title page with give you additional Author Read-alikes.  The More About This Book tab provides publisher information including date of publication and page count.  Additionally Genre, Tone, Writing Style, Subject headings, Location, ISBNs and credits information are available.  Links to Genre are also provided.  Great information for narrowing your reading selections.

Folder selections can be printed, emailed or saved for you next trip to the library or bookstore if you chose to buy.  Or better yet, request items at your library website.

3: Often librarians are asked about books in series order. Use NoveList or NoveList K-8 to find a series in series order. (hint: search on the author and use the Series tab at the top of the results list)

Without the hint it would have taken a bit to figure out how to get series results as it is not intuitive.  I would expect a series tab on the author page.  I did an author series search for one of the Elizabeth Chadwick Read-alikes, Madeline Hunter.  Ms. Hunter has 5 series according to NoveList.  Series Read-alikes suggestions are also available.  Clicking on the linked series title will get you a list of the titles in a series and their order, publication date, and a brief one sentence description.  Title Read-alikes, Author Read-alikes and Series Read-alikes links are available for each title in a given series. You  can also link to each title page for more specific information.  

4: Check out the Resources section – Readers Advisory Toolbox – on NoveList or the How To Use NoveList support center. What parts of the NoveList website do you thing will be most useful to your patrons?

A wealth of information here!  For the most part NoveList is intuitive but I would probably recommend reviewing How To Use NoveList to get the most use out of the product.  I like the ability to select titles and save those selections for another time.  Creating a My NoveList account appears to  be very straightforward:  First and Last name, email, user name, password,  secret question. 

If you want additional reviews, websites that I came across during my MLIS Collection Development course that I would recommend trying out are:

Library Thing http://www.librarything.com/

Good Reads http://www.goodreads.com/