Have you ever had a patron ask for a book recommendation in a genre that you don’t read? Or maybe they’re looking for books on a specific topic? Find the answers you’re looking for by searching pre-made lists on our library’s catalog.
To begin, you’ll want to navigate to the catalog’s home screen. From there, several lists appear for you to browse in a carousel.
If you’re looking for something specific, look at the search bar at the top of the screen. You’ll want to change the searching filter from ‘Keyword’ to ‘List’ before typing in your search term. Some helpful lists to try are ‘wordless picture books,’ ‘mysteries,’ and ‘pop-up books.’ The catalog will bring up lists created by librarians and patrons. All the books in the lists are items found within Allegheny County. Happy searching!
Have you found that you have read all of Brad Thor’s books but you want to read something similar?
Which side note – good job! That is some excellent reading you’ve done!
But back to the craving you need to sate – more Brad Thor-like books. Allegheny County Libraries and NoveList Plus can help! We can feed that need!
All you need to do is go to the County eLibrary and click the Go! button on NoveList Plus to get started. Once you put in your library barcode you will be able to search by author, Brad Thor (obviously), or even title, “Black Ice” (just an example I get it if you are more of a “Rising Tiger” fan) and then you can get read-alikes for either!
No judgement seriously some of us are just bigger Black Ice fans.
You can even just search using keywords to find a book on a topic if you wish… although why you aren’t searching for more Brad Thor read-alikes is a little confusing to me.
You can also browse genres if you want more thrillers and suspense books!
The moral of the story here is that the Allegheny County Libraries and NoveList Plus have your Brad Thor book needs covered but if you need more than just Brad Thor books we can also help there. If you run into any issues with library databases please reach out to you local librarians to help!
After being asked for book recommendations for the umpteenth time, I finally decided to track my reading all of last year and into this year. Not only do I have access to easy recommendations, but also a genuine sense of accomplishment comes over you towards the end of the year. You can also track daily reading, set goals, and many other options.
You can customize how much time you put into a reading app (I like to log when I read and do ratings at the end!), but there is also a tremendous amount of options for apps and websites to use. Here are a couple I can vouch for, The StoryGraph being my tracker-of-choice.
Love it or hate it, Goodreads is an integral part of any librarian’s life. Patrons know it, and whether we like it or not, often swear by it (I once had a patron insist I look up the books they were checking out on Goodreads—if it was under 4 stars, back to the stacks with it). Goodreads is free, it is comprehensive, and it has an incredibly active reviewing community. You can attach both your Amazon account and your Libby account to Goodreads to make tracking even easier. Goodreads also offers recommendations and reading stats, along with helpful widgets to add to your email signature, and many more features I am sure I am unaware of.
Goodreads is the vanilla with sprinkles of reading trackers. Well-known and reliable.
To be honest, I saw someone who has been a book nerd and writer for their whole lives using SG, and I checked it out. I’ve been hooked ever since. SG is attractive to me because of two things: the pointed questions in a review instead of just a blank space for a paragraph, and the data tracking. For comparison, here’s what Goodreads asks when you review a book:
Compare this with what SG asks:
The guided reviews are great, but the real star is the content warnings. Eventually, I am sure every service will have some version of this, but SG is leading the way. Additionally, SG focuses on stats throughout your yearly reading journey—tracking what moods you favor, the pace of books, how large they are, genres, and more. That said, there is a paid version of SG that I am wholly unfamiliar with, as I get everything I need from the free version. Here’s an example of a year-end data set:
Other options:
These are the only two I am intimately familiar with, but there are many options out there (including good old-fashioned pen-and-paper tracking/journaling!). Here is a site with a list of helpful suggestions: https://candidcover.net/book-reading-tracker/
We have! And we want to make sure everyone knows about Transparent Language Online! This online learning tool offers courses on over 120+ languages, including multiple dialects. Work through units & lessons to gain knowledge about the language, then practice using reading, speaking, listening & writing techniques.
Categories focus on the essentials, grammar, vocabulary, and languages for business & travel. Courses vary in levels from basic to intermediate and advanced fluency.
Patrons can utilize Transparent Language Online on its own or pair it with the library’s other language resource, Mango Languages.
Create an account to track your progress, otherwise, continue in guest mode. Either way, you still get full-access to all of the helpful content.
Get started honing your language learning skills today!
