Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of working and speaking with many library employees. They often tell me the same thing: there is never enough time to read. As a librarian myself, I can relate to having an impossibly long TBR pile, giving lie to the perception (among some circles) that we librarians just sit and read all day. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
In the Readers' Advisory field, there is great benefit to reading for both depth and breadth. Exposure to different genres, themes, authors, and perspectives pays serious dividends at the desk. Nothing beats general knowledge and recognition in a subject area your community is interested in; it is crucial that we know what our patrons want and need. And it never hurts to have a few mid- and back-list titles up your sleeve to surprise and delight a voracious reader.
That said, you can’t read everything, nor should you be expected to.
Get help from RA Experts
This is where NoveList can help. NoveList has been in the Readers' Advisory business for over 25 years. We employ and work with amazing library and book professionals who know their craft inside and out. Our story elements, the unique way we approach story and appeal, empower readers to better understand what they want out of the experience of reading and assist library staff with the tools and data to connect readers with impactful titles.
In recent years, we’ve developed and evolved a virtual Readers Advisory experience called NoveList Select, which appears right where your library’s collection is front and center — the library catalog.
NoveList Select makes it easy to find a great next read, by providing users with title, series, and author read-alikes, links to award lists, GoodReads ratings, and more, all from a sleek, responsive display. It harnesses our expert book recommendations and metadata and displays it in an easy-to-use experience, right where patrons need it most.
Always Available, 24/7
NoveList Select, just like your online catalog, is always open. It’s there to fill in as your overnight librarian, your 2nd, or 3rd RA shift, and can help an unlimited number of customers at once.
Even if staffing isn’t a difficulty at your organization, as it is for many libraries around the world right now, NoveList Select can help shoulder the burden by supporting your patrons’ RA needs when a staff member is unavailable, or by empowering front-line staff to make professional, informed recommendations they can trust.
Recommend your collection
Especially valuable for avoiding dead-end searches, NoveList Select’s recommendations can be tailored to your library’s collection. We can make it easier for your users to find great titles that fit their needs, and that are available for checkout, today.
NoveList Select also creates new access points into your collection by allowing users to quickly discover new titles based on NoveList’s story elements, Lexile level, or Accelerated Reader score, all from within your catalog. If you have a patron who is itching for something after blasting through the Foundation series, discovering more fast-paced, world-building space operas in your collection is just a few clicks away.
Series reading order, at a glance
There are thousands of series out there, and it can be difficult to keep track of the proper reading order of each run. Luckily, NoveList tracks series data very closely, so you don’t have to. Series information is displayed prominently in NoveList Select, so that you can quickly see where a title falls in a series reading order. Please let us save you the trouble of ever having to look up another series reading list again!
And for the series reader who cannot get enough, NoveList Select provides similar series recommendations, so they can lock in their next big reading project even while picking up the last title or two in their current series.
Evaluate impact
While NoveList Select will help extend your RA reach, we’ve also made it easy to quickly evaluate the impact NoveList Select is having on your community. Each Select customer is provided access to their library’s Analytics Dashboard, accessible to as many staff members as you would like, from any device. The Dashboard makes it easy to see what features, titles, authors, and series resonate most with your library users.
There are several ways to use the data to make an even deeper, informed impact on your community. We would be more than happy to chat with you about ideas that might best suit your library’s service model and community.
To learn more about how NoveList Select can make an impact and your library and expand your RA reach to your community, 24/7, please contact us today.
Sam Stover is a Senior Product Manager at NoveList. He is currently reading The Stand by Stephen King.
