I have to tell you the truth - I love to read! For those that know me well, I know you are not at all surprised by this confession. Those of you that don’t know me well, you’re still not surprised because I’m the Library Director so I’m supposed to love to read! And yes, I truly do. It is such a wonderful way to unwind and relax after a stressful day at work. Yes, my job is stressful – yes, even at the library!
I have a unique advantage of knowing when certain books are coming out and when my favorite authors are releasing their novels. So it will be hard to imagine, but I have been in a book slump these past few weeks. I just can’t find anything that I really want to read. So what does a librarian do when faced with that dilemma? Let me tell you my trick to finding another fascinating read. It is the database called…… NoveList Plus.
NoveList Plus is a library database that helps with recommendations based off of books that you really enjoyed in the past. It is easy to access from our homepage at www.lafourche.org and then click on the big purple button that says databases and scroll down on the left side to find it. Once you click on it, it will open to its landing page. From there you have several ways to search.
Browse Genres By Ages is a great way to narrow your search for adult books, YA novels, ages 9-12, or books for ages 0-8. Once you choose an age, it take you to a page that breaks it down to even more genres: fantasy, fiction, historical, mysteries, romance, and more….
Featured Read-Alikes is another great way to find a book that was similar to one you might have enjoyed. Find a book that you recognize and enjoyed and see what other books are like it.
The search bar at the top of the page is my favorite way to find a new book! Type in the name of a book that you really enjoyed, or even your favorite author. The left side of the bar has a drop down arrow that allows you to change the field to keyword, title, author, series, or narrator. Chose the appropriate one for what you typed in the box and then search. It will pull up the title of the book, if that is what you put in, and then it will give you title read-alikes, author read-alikes, and series read-alikes. When you click on one of those, it brings you to a list of titles with reasons why it is similar to the title or author you like.
So if you get like me sometimes and just aren’t sure what to read next, try out Novelist Plus. Your local library branch will be happy to show you how to work in the database or find any of the books you would like to read. If the book you want isn’t at your local branch, we can have it delivered there from one of our other branches or we will borrow it from another Parish through our Interlibrary Loan System, of course all at no cost to you! I personally love ebooks, so if you like to read an ebook like me, let your librarian know what title you need and if we haven’t got it within our Cloud system, they will put it on the suggested title list and we will try to purchase it. But, we have thousands of titles and have access to other Parish’s ebook collections, so chances are we already have it.
If there is any way we can assist you in finding your next favorite book, let us know. That is our favorite job! Happy book hunting!