NoveList
Accessed: Through Los Angeles Public Library
Provided by: EBSCO Databases
Brief Description: NoveList is a database of books, in which you can find book information, read-alikes by author, title, and subject, as well as find out about award-winners and search in a variety of ways.
Services: NoveList is a database provided by EBSCO databases in which you can search for books, read several reviews (from Booklist, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus), read a brief summary, and find out about any awards the title has won or lists it has been placed on. Read-alikes appear on the right-hand border of the page whenever looking at a book title. It is possible to do searches by keyword, title, author, and series, and then the search results can be narrowed by the audience you want the book tailored to, as well as genre, storyline (for example, “character-driven” and “intricately plotted”), tone, writing style, illustration, subject, and location. You can also look at title read-alikes, author read-alikes, and series read-alikes for any title. For example, doing a keyword search of “1920s New York City teen” will bring up a number of titles, including The Diviners, by Libba Bray. In the record itself, you can decide to search for more items with the same keywords, and it gives you a selection of these words. You can also access your own library through NoveList to determine if it has the book you are looking for. There is also some author information available.
Evaluation: NoveList is not only a great tool for librarians, but a great tool for readers to use to learn more information about their favorite titles, as well as find out about other titles they might be interested in reading. The interface is easy to use, although there are some oddities. For some reason, once you open the entry for a title, you can’t easily access the “author read-alike, title read-alike, and series read-alike sections,” that are visible next to the title in the search results. In addition, these buttons produce lists that will look good printed but do not actually link to the titles. The read-alikes on the right side of the page are links, however, and this is helpful. Each title, if recommended as a read-alike, has an “agree with recommendation” thumbs up or thumbs down next to it, so NoveList is constantly improving its recommendations. Overall, this is a nice addition to a library, and probably much better than the average library OPAC. It can also be accessed from home, so that is an additional benefit.
Company Information: From www.ebsco.com/about: “EBSCO Information Services provides a complete and optimized research solution comprised of research databases, e-books and e-journals—all combined with the most powerful discovery service and management resources to support the information and collection development needs of libraries and other institutions and to maximize the search experience for researchers and other end users.
EBSCO offers more than 375 full-text and secondary research databases and over 550,000 e-books plus subscription management services for 360,000 e-journals, e-journal packages and print journals. EBSCO also provides point-of-care decision support tools for healthcare professionals and organizational learning resources for training and development professionals.
EBSCO serves the content needs of all researchers whether they access EBSCO resources via academic institutions, schools, public libraries, hospitals and medical institutions, corporations, associations, government institutions, etc.”
Why This Database: This is a great resource for teens to look up more information about the books they like and to find read-alikes.
Accessed: Through Los Angeles Public Library
Provided by: EBSCO Databases
Brief Description: NoveList is a database of books, in which you can find book information, read-alikes by author, title, and subject, as well as find out about award-winners and search in a variety of ways.
Services: NoveList is a database provided by EBSCO databases in which you can search for books, read several reviews (from Booklist, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus), read a brief summary, and find out about any awards the title has won or lists it has been placed on. Read-alikes appear on the right-hand border of the page whenever looking at a book title. It is possible to do searches by keyword, title, author, and series, and then the search results can be narrowed by the audience you want the book tailored to, as well as genre, storyline (for example, “character-driven” and “intricately plotted”), tone, writing style, illustration, subject, and location. You can also look at title read-alikes, author read-alikes, and series read-alikes for any title. For example, doing a keyword search of “1920s New York City teen” will bring up a number of titles, including The Diviners, by Libba Bray. In the record itself, you can decide to search for more items with the same keywords, and it gives you a selection of these words. You can also access your own library through NoveList to determine if it has the book you are looking for. There is also some author information available.
Evaluation: NoveList is not only a great tool for librarians, but a great tool for readers to use to learn more information about their favorite titles, as well as find out about other titles they might be interested in reading. The interface is easy to use, although there are some oddities. For some reason, once you open the entry for a title, you can’t easily access the “author read-alike, title read-alike, and series read-alike sections,” that are visible next to the title in the search results. In addition, these buttons produce lists that will look good printed but do not actually link to the titles. The read-alikes on the right side of the page are links, however, and this is helpful. Each title, if recommended as a read-alike, has an “agree with recommendation” thumbs up or thumbs down next to it, so NoveList is constantly improving its recommendations. Overall, this is a nice addition to a library, and probably much better than the average library OPAC. It can also be accessed from home, so that is an additional benefit.
Company Information: From www.ebsco.com/about: “EBSCO Information Services provides a complete and optimized research solution comprised of research databases, e-books and e-journals—all combined with the most powerful discovery service and management resources to support the information and collection development needs of libraries and other institutions and to maximize the search experience for researchers and other end users.
EBSCO offers more than 375 full-text and secondary research databases and over 550,000 e-books plus subscription management services for 360,000 e-journals, e-journal packages and print journals. EBSCO also provides point-of-care decision support tools for healthcare professionals and organizational learning resources for training and development professionals.
EBSCO serves the content needs of all researchers whether they access EBSCO resources via academic institutions, schools, public libraries, hospitals and medical institutions, corporations, associations, government institutions, etc.”
Why This Database: This is a great resource for teens to look up more information about the books they like and to find read-alikes.