Librarians are expected to know everything, and that can be a little intimidating. Luckily, I find that you don't have to know everything... you just have to know where to find it. This can be particularly tricky when doing readers' advisory, because no matter how many books you read, shelve, and hear about, there are always more that are just out of reach: there are just too many books in the world for any one person to know them all. As such, please allow me to introduce you my personal favorite RA database.
What is NoveList, and why do I care?
In short, NoveList is a reader's advisory database. You care because it
will make your librarian life easier by orders of magnitude, and if you
geek out about stuff like this (like I do), you can have a lot of fun
with it, too. There's a lot to it, but no need to be intimidated; we've split it into two parts to make it more manageable. (Don't have NoveList where you work? Check the library in the town where you live; it might surprise you!)
Here's what NoveList has to offer you:
Here's what NoveList has to offer you:
The Toolbar
For this article, we're just going to focus on the toolbar at the top of the page. I think we can get through this without too much worry, right?
Lists & Articles
- Author Read-Alikes - For those who love a certain author and have no idea what to pick up once they've finished reading their entire body of work
- Book Discussion Guides - Why reinvent the wheel for your book club, when you can get the questions here? You may even see things you hadn't thought about. ("Wait, there's symbolism in the rain? I just thought it was lousy weather!")
- Feature Articles - Read about topics and recommended titles from a variety of genres. More on that in a moment.
- Grab and Go Book Lists - Planning a lesson or program, or need a new display? Grab a list and go for it!
- Picture Book Extenders - Ideas and activities to make your picture books last past story time. Includes summaries, discussion questions, related titles, activities, grade levels, author information, etc. (Helpful hint: When a parent complains that they just can't read The Princess and the Pig one more time, print out this page to give them more to do than just reading it again and again. Great book, by the way.)