It’s time for another eResource Challenge! Before we get to this month’s scenario, let’s wrap up the last one. All of the responses to the challenge were thorough and informative. If you’re a little nervous about helping patrons with investing resources it’s worth a quick look at the comments. They will give you a good sense of some of the best tools for investment research within Morningstar and some of our other resources. Lastly, congratulations to Mindy D., the winner of eResource Challenge Lite #3!
And now, this month’s challenge:
A patron who loves to read fantasy comes into the library. She asks you for some recommendations and a list of some of the best fantasy for the past year. She also wants to find new authors to read because none of her favorites are publishing anything new at the moment.
You know that NoveList is a great resource for finding read-alikes. How would you go about your search? What tools does NoveList have to help you and your patron stay on top of what’s new in fantasy? What are some of your other favorite reader’s advisory resources?
Leave your responses in the comments section below by Friday, February 6th to be eligible for a prize!
First of all, I would talk to the person to see which fantasy book she enjoys reading. There seems to be many different types of fantasy books according to the list I found in NoveList. The Recommended Reads Lists in NoveList is a good place to start under Adult Fantasy. If you click on a fantasy link under Recommended Reads Lists, it brings up a list of Award Winners under Related Content on the right hand side of the screen.
I would also scroll up to where it says Lists & Articles in NoveList. (beside the word, Home). The links under there could be helpful.
I would also click on Professional Toolbox and click on Readers’ Advisory. The whole page would be helpful. Keeping up…Genres is another helpful resource. Keeping up…Fantasy is a place where I would look.
I would also check own library’s shelves for RA books on fantasy.
Amazon could work, too. One can click on “Customers who bought this item also bought” for ideas.
Novelist has two resources that should help this patron immensely: an article called “Keeping up with the Fans: Fantasy Resources on the Web” and “Keeping Up … Fantasy.” The latter can be found under the Spotlight On… tab and has links to all of the major fantasy award winners.
The patron can also do an advanced search by genre for fantasy, then sort by date newest. That returns forthcoming titles first, then current titles, so any authors who aren’t currently publishing are weeded out.
Log onto Novel List with your library card. You will have a couple of ways to search for fantasy books.
First, under the List and Article tab, you can search for read-alkes, limiting your search genre-fantasy for most currently published books.
Second, you can search under the spotlight on tab- selecting Genre. You can search under the genre Fantasy tab( there is a Best of 2014) or you can do an advance search (top of the page) limiting the search- genre fantasy and publication year to bring up the most current fantasy books. You can further limit your search to audience, forthcoming, review and award winner.
You can also go to fantastic fiction.
Under the All search, limit your search to Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. You can then search by New Authors, New Books, Coming Soon, Most Popular and Top Authors .
OR
Scroll to the bottom of the page where there is a genre page. Select the genre and you will have a listing of new books. The column on the right is a listing of books coming soon.
I found some relevant information about the fantasy genre by clicking on the “Fantasy” link in the “Recommended Reads Lists” section along the left side of the main Novelist page. After I chose a subgenre from the next list that appeared on the right, I found two different ways of accessing Read-alike titles.
First, I clicked on one of the ” If you like . . .” lists found in the Additional Lists” section along the right side of the page. I also found other titles by clicking on a title listed in the “Recommended Reads” section inthe middle of the page and then viewing the Read-alikes for that title listed along the far right side of the screen. I liked that Novelist provides a variety of read-alikes and not just read-alikes based on specific fantasy titles.
I was more impressed by a Novelist feature that I never tried before: The Readers’ Advisory Toolbox.
I found the toolbox by accident by clicking on the ‘Professional Toolbox” link in the orange bar along the top of the Novelist page, and then clicking the “Readers; Advisory” link.
Novelist provided a “Keeping Up . . . Genres” link in the middle of the page under the “Learning about Genres” section. I found an entire page devoted to Fantasy. The page contained numerous lists, such as award winners and lists devoted to different age groups. I found the page very easy to navigate and explore.
I was most impressed by another link found in the Learning about Genres section. I clicked on “Genre Overviews” and then the “Adult” link. The next page listed a bunch of Readers Advisory articles, including a recent (June 2014) article on “Getting Up to Speed in Fantasy Fiction” bu Joyce Saricks. I think her article would be a great reference for people like me who are unfamiliar with the Fantasy genre.
I liked how she provided links to a select number of authors and titles for those who want a few suggestions when starting to read Fantasy titles. I would feel more comfortable starting with her suggestions, instead of sorting thorough all of the different titles that would appear if I decided to use Novelist to browse the entire Fantasy collection.
First, I would find out which authors she likes. Then I would search for some of their books, so I could then click on Author Read-alikes, Title Read-alikes and possibly Series Read-alikes. I would show her the Recommended Reads Lists which has lists for 15 types of fantasy books. Once we clicked on a type, I would also show her, on the right side, the related content such as fantasy award winners and feature articles. I would also show her Spotlight On…Genres…Fantasy which has so much information and a cool reading map. She will have enough fantasy books to last for years!