FYI

Linda H. Lord
Director, Library Development
Maine State Library
64 State House Station
Augusta, ME  04333
Telephone 207-287-5620
Fax 207-287-5624
E-mail [log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: Lynne Rohweder [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, September 06, 2002 10:34 AM
To: Alabama ListServ (E-mail); Diana Degen (E-mail); Harris County Public
Library (E-mail); Jennifer Watson (E-mail); NC Live (E-mail); North of
Boston Library Exchange (E-mail); Philip McArdle (E-mail); Stephen Cunetto
(E-mail); Susan Brown (E-mail); Teresa Pare (E-mail); Linda Lord (E-mail)
Subject: NoveList Notes (Sept 2002): Mainstream Fiction

Please post to your respective listservs.  Thanks!

LynneRohweder
Director of Marketing - NoveList

NoveList is a product of EBSCO Publishing


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NoveList Notes                     September, 2002
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Please share by forwarding to any other colleagues who would benefit from
this content.

NoveList Notes is an eclectic collection of tips, tricks, or information
about how to use NoveList more effectively.  They are designed to be short,
quick, and practical.  Some topics will be more applicable to libraries,
some more applicable to schools, and some will be effective for either
environment. This note appeared couple of years ago and due to its
popularity, has been rewritten for the current version of NoveList.

=========================================
MAINSTREAM FICTION: "Memoirs of a Geisha"
=========================================
While at the desk, a reader comes up and says, "I loved "Memoirs of a
Geisha!"  Can you help me find something just like it?" You feel your
heartbeat quicken as you realize that this is a book you haven't read!

======================
MAINSTREAM FICTION
======================
Working with a reader who has read a book that you have not read is always
challenging. When the reader's title is a mainstream fiction title, the
pressure goes up.  The reason for this is that mainstream fiction doesn't
have a formula plot line. Many of us are comfortable with genres and their
conventions.  Mainstream fiction also has conventions; these books tend to
have a character focus. Rather than being organized around a plot formula,
mainstream fiction is organized around the life-stories or life-events of
the novel's characters.  The characters, their relationships, and their
struggles become factors we can search on to guide readers to similar
titles.  Many mainstream fiction readers are also interested in the quality
of the writing.

=================
USING NOVELIST
=================
To help your "Memoirs of a Geisha" patron most effectively, you should find
out what her experience of the book was. Use a variation of Joyce Saricks'
question "Tell me about a book you have read and enjoyed?" and ask the
patron, "Can you tell me what you enjoyed about reading "Memoirs of a
Geisha?"

After the patron has finished telling you her version of "Memoirs of a
Geisha," you can use NoveList to guide her to other titles that might be of
interest.

Many readers of this book talk about liking the fact that this book
contained stories about women living in other countries, stories about women
and the issues they face, stories about women who were ethnically different
from the reader, and/or stories about women that were well written.


In working with this reader, we would use the following steps:
Start NoveList.
1.      Click on the START button at the "Welcome to NoveList" page.
2.      Select the link for "Find a favorite title" at the New Search page.
3.      Enter "memoirs of a geisha" and click on the SEARCH button.  Select
the link for the title to go to the title record.
4.      On the title record for the book, click on the "Find Similar Books"
button.
5.      The "Find Similar Books" page displays all the subject headings from
the title record (in our example, "Memoirs of a Geisha") as editable
checkboxes. This allows the reader the chance to view the subject headings
and select the ones that are most interesting to her.
- A reader interested in novels about women and their experiences might
select one or more of the following headings: women; friendship; men/women
relations; or competition in women.
- A reader who enjoyed the novel's Japanese setting and wanted more books
that take place in Japan and explore the country's culture might select:
Kyota,Japan and social life and customs; or geishas.
- Readers who enjoyed following the main character's struggle from humble
beginnings to a place of wealth might select "rags-to-riches stories."
6. After the reader selects the headings that are of interest to them, click
SEARCH to retrieve titles that have a list one of the selected headings
(NoveList's relevancy ranking in the results list tell you how strong your
match is).

Note: At "Find Similar Books," NoveList now allows the reader to indicate
whether the subject heading is a required or desired subject heading for the
search.  Here is what that means:

Required: Checking this box for a subject heading means that the search will
only display titles that contain this subject heading. If you check more
than one subject heading in the Required column, only those titles that
contain all of the "required" subject headings will be retrieved. (This acts
as a Boolean AND.)

Desired: Checking this box means that all the titles containing at least one
of the "desired" subject headings will be retrieved. (This acts as a Boolean
OR.)

You discover that one of the things your reader really enjoyed about
"Memoirs of a Geisha" is the vivid description of social life and customs
but she does not care whether it is about Japan or some other country.
Therefore, "Social Life and customs" would be checked in the "Required"
column.  The reader thinks it would be nice if it was also about "Women" and
"Friendship" but these subject headings are not required for her (they are
"nice to haves").  These subjects could be checked in the "Desired" column.
NoveList will ONLY retrieve titles that have "social life and customs" as a
subject heading BUT if the title also has "women" or "friendship" as subject
headings, those titles will appear at the top of the relevancy ranked list.

=======================================
ANOTHER APPROACH FOR THE SAME TITLE
=======================================

If the reader is focused on the quality of writing, you can use NoveList's
Best Fiction section, which contains over 200 awards lists.

1. Click the "New Search" button at the top of the page to return to the
Search Selection page.
2. Select the "Best Fiction" link in the Browse Lists section of the page.
3. Make sure that "Adult" is selected as the level and click on the CONTINUE
button.
4. Click on the "Literary" button and select from the various awards.

For award winning titles that have women characters or deal with women's
issues, use "Describe a Plot" and enter the following: women award. NOTE:
you can also search by a specific award-e.g., women pulitzer OR women
national book award.