Readers are rarely drawn to a book for only one reason. When someone looks up a favorite book in NoveList, the title record allows the reader to use the subject headings from their favorite book to search for similar books. This can be done in two ways:

1) Clickable Subject Headings at the Title Record
The major elements of a book (genre, plot, theme) are described in NoveList K-8 by the use of subject headings. Subject headings are used to identify the significant and unique parts of a book. NoveList also uses a controlled vocabulary as the basis for its subject headings so that the same word is consistently used to describe the same concept or element. These two factors combine to make subject headings a very powerful method for searching and learning about new books. With thousands of subject headings used by NoveList K-8, this section of the title record can be quite robust.

At a favorite book's title record, the reader can look at the subject headings, select the subject heading(s) that were most enjoyable or important to them, and click the "Subject Search" button. NoveList will search the subject headings of all other titles in the database and retrieve the books that best match the headings that were selected. The results will be relevancy ranked, placing the best matches at the top of the list.

When using the clickable subject headings at the title record, all subjects are treated as equal. When several headings are selected, NoveList will find any book that contains all of the headings that were selected.

2) The "Find Similar Books" Button
For a more refined search, you can select the "Find Similar Books" button--just below the book jacket image on the title record--to define how you want the subject headings searched. Using the "Find Similar Books" feature , a reader can select the headings that matter most to them and require NoveList to retrieve only books that contain these headings OR combine these required headings with headings that are desired. You can also use Limiters to further fine-tune your search.

Consider this Scenario:

A student really enjoyed reading The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman. She would like to find some more books like it. To help this reader talk about what she likes, you bring up the NoveList title record and talk with her about what she liked about the book using the subject headings as prompts. You also note that it has a Lexile score of 1240 and ask her if she had difficulty reading the book. She indicated that it was at a comfortable reading level for her and that she liked that it took place in the past and that it was about people living in England.

The search that would work best for this reader is a Find Similar Books search that requires retrieved titles to have England and history as subject headings. You review the Limit Your Results box and leave Young Adult as the only checked heading for reading level since she is comfortable with a 1240 Lexile.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Click here to return to where you were...