ACTIVITY 7: NOVELIST

I'm skipping Activity 6 for now because trying to do OneClickDigital at the desk is a little tricky, and I've been treading water for two months, now, with the clock running down.  Here's to a happy 2015.

I'm somewhat entertained by the fact that the NoveList Plus interface is already slightly different from the screenshots on our instructions.   The differences are minor enough to not bother me, but this kind of constant, iterative change that's all the rage can create roadblocks to navigation for some users.  In any event, I chose "The Eyre Affair" from their recommended audiobooks, something which I have not read (nor listened to) but would probably very much enjoy.  In fact, the listen-alikes were spot-on with what I'd expect, including two Douglas Adams titles along with Terry Pratchett and a few authors I'm unfamiliar with but should look into.  From there I selected "fantasy fiction" with a "funny" tone and a "witty" writing style, and they came up with a whopping 108 suggestions (LOST alert!), although that included juvenile titles.  Selecting "adults" brought the total down to 48.

In any event, as a not-super-helpful librarian when it comes to Readers Advisory (or even just picking out titles for the display case), I find this kind of tool very useful, not only for making suggestions to patrons but also for trying to track down the elusive "I don't remember the name of it or the author but it had a guy in it who does a thing and it has a yellow cover."  Of course, I often turn to the old standbys of Wikipedia, Google, and Amazon, but I appreciate having a good literature database.

P.S. I miss "Books in Print."  Old habits.