Library can boast of having free 'NoveList'

Are you constantly looking for the next great book to read? You really need to try out NoveList. It’s a free “what do I read next” advisor that is now part of our online catalog.

This searchable online resource guides you to find fiction books similar to your reading tastes. Pull up an author or novel you really like and click on Full Display. A drop down menu of added features to our catalog including Summary, Reviews, First Chapter or Excerpt, Large Cover Image, NoveList, Librarian’s View and Find More Like This will appear in a drop-down menu in the upper right corner of the screen.

Choose NoveList when it appears and you’ll receive a variety of things – information on the author, a chance to explore similar authors and books and reviews. You’ll even have the chance to describe a plot and NoveList will guide you to books that match the description. There are also author read-a-likes, resources for book clubs and teachers, lists of award-winning books, and recommended reads.

Within our Online Catalog, you can go to the NoveList homepage and create an account for yourself, and then have the ability when you sign in, to have access to a personal area you can use to collect information you plan on reusing in a future NoveList session. You do not need to sign in to conduct searches or print. Sign in only if you want to save items and reuse them the next time you use NoveList. Once you sign in, all the items saved in your folder will be available to you the next time you sign in to My NoveList. Only you can access your personal folder items.

Budget cuts are all anyone is talking about these days, and we are dealing with substantial cuts ourselves. We have cut all but essential purchases and have to be very selective in purchasing books this year. Looking to make the most of what we have to offer our users, the county libraries in our consortia have gone together to purchase NoveList for our patrons. When the seven libraries (Chester, Darlington, Dillon, Georgetown, Marion, Marlboro and Sumter) in our Palmetto Consortia found we were able to share the cost, it became an affordable option.

Any book is a new book until you have read it, and we think access for our readers to this new online database will help us make good use of the fabulous collection we already have. No one finds browsing in the stacks to be particularly easy, and sometimes it is hit-or-miss at best.

NoveList will help you focus on interesting books you haven’t read that have been in the stacks waiting for you to discover them. Remember, if you find mention of something you would like to read and we don’t have it in our collection, we are more than happy to try to borrow it for you through interlibrary loan.

Used along with the library’s online catalog, you can access NoveList from within the library or from home, work or school. All you need to log into the database is your library card ID number. If you have older library card with a 12 digit number beginning with 4401, just add a 2 to the beginning of your number and a zero at the end of your ID number and you’ll be able to log in.

In addition to NoveList, Find More Like This is a feature that will give you a list of titles and authors that are very much like the title you’ve typed in to search. So, if you go to our catalog and type in a book that you’ve liked and ideas of what to read next – there are two great ways to supply yourself with a long “I want to read” list.