Tune up your NoveList Select subscription

As more and more libraries operate at full, pre-pandemic capacity, you may find yourself reflecting on how to make the most impact on the communities you serve. We would like to help by offering a few ideas for how to tune up your NoveList Select subscription, to give the readers in your community the best experience possible.

The tips below are just a starting point. You can see more helpful tips and suggestions like this on our official NoveList Select launch guide.

Optimize your integration

First, it’s important to consider what type of readers advisory experience you would like to build for your library customers, and how best NoveList Select can help you achieve that goal. Be sure to review the many great features NoveList Select offers to readers in your catalog, self-checkout machine, and other applications. We want to ensure you have the latest and greatest that Select can offer, and our Support team would be happy to make changes to your configuration. Please reach out to them at novelistselectsupport@ebsco.com to request adding/removing features, or if you have any questions at all about optimizing NoveList Select at your library.

Additionally, we always recommend checking with your ILS or discovery layer provider to ask about what options are available to you for placement and customization. Finding ways to keep the content “above the fold,” open by default, and labeled with language that makes sense to your community are all best practices that will extend the value of Select further to your readers.

Promote your service

NoveList Select is a fantastic tool for front-line staff because it makes finding a great read in the library’s collection as simple as a catalog search. Empower your staff to use NoveList Select by showing how fast it can be to find recommendations, titles in series reading order, or to find books by reading level. Select can reduce the stress of an impromptu readers advisory conversation, because staff should know they are supported by a deep bench of RA experts available at a moment’s notice, directly in the catalog.

As an added benefit, the better your staff know NoveList Select, the easier it will be for them to promote the service to your community’s readers. Talk up NoveList Select at the desk or promote it in your library’s email newsletter. Word of mouth can go a long way, so be sure to encourage staff to show your library patrons how easy NoveList Select can be to use and explore.

Analyze your impact

Once you have customized NoveList Select and promoted it to your staff and community, evaluate the result of your efforts to see what works and what might need to change. Conveniently, NoveList Select comes equipped with a fantastic tool for evaluating the impact of Select on your community: the NoveList Select Analytics Dashboard.

The Dashboard offers an array of analyses, including what titles, authors, and series were most frequently enhanced by Select, and what features resonated most with your community. And we have plenty of ideas for how to get the most out of your usage data. If you have not yet requested access, please reach out to our Support team at novelistselectsupport@ebsco.com to request your access today.