Below are some of the most frequently asked-about search strategies:

1) Searching for books written in the same "style" as a particular author
2) Searching Reviews
3) Using Popularity for broad searches
4) Excluding terms while searching
5) Finding Titles by African-American Authors
6) Finding titles by Lexile Score and/or Reading Level

1) Searching for books written in the same "style" as a particular author

This search strategy will not work with all authors but is very successful with well-established and/or popular authors.

Using the Boolean search, you can search for reviews that mention a title is written much like "so and so's book" or in the same style as "so and so's book" and then use NOT to exclude the titles by the author (see the the sample above right that will find books like Lois Lowry's BUT not written by Lois Lowry). This same search works well with Sharon Creech, Karen Cushman, Jerry Spinelli, among others.

2) Searching Reviews

The reviews in NoveList are searchable. This creates many opportunities for searching not available when searching only by subject headings. By using the Boolean Search and selecting "Reviews" from the drop-down menu (rather than "All Fields"), you can open up new possibilities for the types of books you can find. A few examples of phrases that can be searched for in reviews are:

• read aloud
• page turner
• *starred review*
• watercolor (in reference to illustrations)
• collage (in reference to illustrations)

Use Popularity to fine-tune your results! Note that with many of these types of broad searches, the number of results will be large. Use the popularity sort at the search results page to move the "most read" titles to the top of the list. If the search is still too broad, use Limit Your Results and further narrow your search by reading level, publication date or any of the other limiters.

3) Using Popularity for broad searches

The popularity sorting feature lets you find, for example, a list of mystery titles published in the last five years and then show your readers which ones have been the most popular. Even when you haven’t read the book, you now have a way to guide your readers to the most widely read books in any genre or on any topic.

Popular titles are starred to indicate high demand titles. Our popularity information is gathered from thousands of libraries and retail outlets nationwide and is based on ordering information received from Baker & Taylor. If a book meets the popularity criteria, a series of one to four stars will be displayed to indicate the popularity factor for that title.

4) Excluding terms while searching

Sometimes, you want to exclude certain terms in particular fields in order to focus your search. For example, a teacher may want to search on the fantasy genre but she doesn't really want books about witches. Because NoveList has several subject headings about witches (witch, witches, witchcraft) not to mention various versions of the word in reviews, a wild card is used with "witch" to exclude all references. You can use the Boolean search and NOT to search for "fantasy" but NOT "witch*." Likewise, you can use a Boolean search and NOT to search for "fantasy" but NOT "vampire*" as another example.

5) Finding Titles by African-American Authors

Helping readers find books written by an author of a particular ethnicity, nationality or gender can be challenging. Here is how to find books written by African-American authors in NoveList.

• In standard cataloging practice, subject headings describe the content of a work not the creator of that work. In NoveList, however, we do assign headings that reflect the ethnicity or nationality of a writer. These headings are constructed by adding the word fiction or literature to an ethnic group of nationality. Generally NoveList uses the “fiction” heading instead of “literature” but you should search on both to be sure you do not miss any relevant titles. Examples include fiction, African-American, children's fiction, African-American.
• Author ethnicity in genre fiction is also indicated in NoveList. The form is the genre heading followed by a comma with the ethnicity of the author following the comma. The heading for a humorous story that is written by an African-American would be: humorous stories, African-American.

Here are some sample headings:

General Literature headings:

• African-American fiction
• Children's fiction, African-American
• Teenage fiction, African-American
• Picture Books for Children, African-American

Genre-related headings:

• Mystery stories, African-American
• Short Stories, African-American

Article and List Search for African-American Authors:

You can also find lists of African-American authors and/or titles by African American authors by using the Article and List Search on the "Search Our Database" page. Select this link and enter: african-american authors in the Find box. You will get a list of all annotated bibliographies, awards lists and other lists in NoveList K-8 on this topic.

Best Fiction for African-American Authors and Illustrators:

Specifically, the Coretta Scott King awards will be listed (or you can go to the "Browse Lists" page and access the Coretta Scott King awards directly under Best Fiction in either the Young Adult or Children's levels under the Literary heading).

The Coretta Scott King Award is given to African-American authors and illustrators for outstanding contributions to children's and young adult literature in books which promote appreciation of the contribution of all people to the realization of the American Dream, to peace, and to world brotherhood. First presented in 1970 by the American Library Association's Social Responsibilities Round Table, the award has included separate categories for authors and illustrators since 1979.

6) Finding Titles by Lexile Score and/or Reading Level

Many of our customers ask whether they can search the NoveList K-8 database for a list of titles within a certain Lexile range without entering a subject as part of the search. It is possible to search by Lexile alone -- using our Freehand Boolean search. Here is how:

1. Select the Search Our Database tab and click the link for Boolean Search.
2. Next to the "Search" and "Clear" buttons, is a link labeled Freehand Boolean Search. Click this link.
3. Enter this text: LX GE 850 AND LX LE 950 (LX=Lexile; GE=greater than or equal to; LE=less than or equal to), or edit this text with the Lexile range you would like to search.
4. Click Search.

This returns over a thousand titles in the Lexile range specified.

If you want to use a similar search but limit to a particular audience, you may use this type of search instead:

(LX GE 850 AND LX LE 950) AND (RL 2)

This returns over 300 results, all for the Young Adult audience.

Here are the Freehand codes for reading levels, in case you want to limit by intended audience as well as by Lexile score:

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