With its new read-alike lists, additional book guides, and participation in a community-wide reading project, NoveList™ is once again leading the way in providing exceptional support for library readers' advisory services. NoveList has always allowed superior subject searching, using over 36,000 subject headings to describe the more than 100,000 titles listed in its database. Now as a further development, NoveList is presenting a new approach to finding appropriate books for individual readers, as well as adding to features that a library can use to enrich the reading experience of its entire community.

Searching by subject headings is not necessarily the most advantageous method of searching for every reader. Thus, to provide a one-stop solution, NoveList is working with Joyce Saricks, a nationally recognized expert on readers' advisory and author of "Readers' Advisors Guide to Genre Fiction" (ALA, 2001), who is creating author read-alike lists. These lists include a brief discussion of why people enjoy an author, other authors who write books that match these characteristics, and an explanation of the way in which they match.

Read-alike lists currently available include alternative author recommendations for readers of Clive Cussler, Sue Grafton, John Grisham, Jan Karon and Nora Roberts. Five new lists will be added each month.

Book guides are another NoveList feature that libraries can use to enhance the reading experience not only of individual readers, but also of an entire community. Several communities have started city- and county-wide book discussion programs. One example of this is an initiative in Palm Beach County, Florida called "Read Together Palm Beach County: One Book, One Community." For the project they have chosen the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and NoveList™ has agreed to make its book guide for this title available to all participants.

Kathy Boyes, Manager, Community Relations for the Palm Beach County Library System, said, "Our goal with the 'Read Together' Campaign is to encourage all readers in our communities to join discussion groups. In addition to providing discussion groups of our own, our libraries are training book discussion leaders and making NoveList book discussion guides available to aid in this process. These guides have been a great resource, and the Palm Beach County Library has worked closely with NoveList in order to extend access to the book guides to include all libraries in Palm Beach County." To learn more about this project you can reach the web site at http://readtogether.pbpost.com.

NoveList is willing to work on many levels with any of its customers to support services to fiction readers. Soon NoveList will begin to add book discussion guides for young adult titles such as Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, Carolyn Meyer's Lilacs, and Louis Sachar's Holes among others. Overall, NoveList adds four to five book discussion guides, seven to ten book talks and five to seven feature articles each month to its database, while continuously increasing the total number of searchable fiction titles and always working to be responsive to the changing needs of libraries and readers.

Released: March 13, 2002