NoveList provides a great deal of information about popular fiction. This resource will be enjoyed by anyone who wants to find information about books to read and greatly appreciated by those librarians whose jobs include readers’ advisory tasks.
The database allows a number of search options. Users can perform searches by author, title, and series name. Limits are available for reader level and publication year, a useful feature for public and school libraries. Users can also enter words to describe a plot and receive a listing of possible titles. Two types of advanced searching, using either natural language or Boolean operators, are provided. Sample searches, noted on each screen, provide helpful information about truncation, word order in searching, and other features. A step‐by‐step tutorial is also available. A browse function is provided for users who want to look through listings of novels arranged by reader level.
A few facts about the search functions are worth mentioning. Phrase searching is only possible by using the proximity function in the advanced Boolean search type. This can affect some of the search strategies attempted in the “describe a plot” search. The developers note that phrase searching is being explored as a feature for future versions of NoveList. The result set is limited to 1,200 items in advanced Boolean searches and to 250 in the plot search and natural language search types. Helpful features include the ability to sort results by title, author, or publication year. A column also indicates whether a description is included for the item. The items with descriptions offer publication information, subject headings, series name, at least one review, reading level, and links to other online resources. Items without descriptions include everything noted above except for the reviews.
NoveList offers a guide for book discussion groups, complete with popular titles and sample discussion questions. Information about, and samples of, book talks for children and young adult readers are included. An area called Feature Article provides links to online interviews and other articles about authors and genres. NoveList also provides access to external Web‐based resources for school and public librarians.
According to the information provided by NoveList, when it was first offered in March 1994 the database included 22,000 titles with approximately 1,200 reviews. In 2001, NoveList contains over 100,000 titles, over 56,000 of which include annotations, reviews, or summaries. NoveList is committed to adding approximately 10,000 new fiction records annually.
The ability to focus searches by four age groups (adults plus three categories for readers aged 0‐19 years) makes NoveList especially useful. Public and school libraries, particularly those with active reading programs and book discussion groups, should strongly consider adding NoveList to their collections of online resources.
