[OPLINLIST] NOVELIST NOTES (Mar 05): Searching the Full-Text Reviews in NoveL
ist
Lynne Rohweder
LRohweder@epnet.com
Thu, 24 Mar 2005 11:33:11 -0500
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NoveList Notes March, 2005
Please share by forwarding to any other colleagues who would benefit from
this content. The searches in this Note will work in both NoveList and
NoveList K-8.
SEARCHING THE FULL-TEXT REVIEWS IN NOVELIST
Many of you know that NoveList provides a very thorough subject heading
treatment for its titles. With over 36,000 subject headings, searching the
database by subject headings is very effective. However, there are a number
of additional unique ways to find books for you or your readers by searching
the over 100,000 reviews from Library Journal, School Library Journal,
Publishers Weekly, Booklist and Rendez-vous.
Consider just a few of the "types" of descriptions that you could search for
using reviews:
* Fast-paced
* Memorable characters
* Strong characterizations
* Read alouds
* Watercolor illustrations
* Vignettes
* Debut novels
* Starred review
Just as with any full-text search, you will need to look at the individual
reviews or show your reader how to do so. NoveList will only return titles
with reviews that include your search terms, but the review may be
describing the quality of the novel ("a fast-paced adventure") or it might
pull a review for a story where the main character "has a fast-paced
career." The review could describe an author's "debut" novel or it could be
discussing a character's "debut" on stage. However, the above terms return
a majority of titles where they are describing qualities of the book.
USING THE BOOLEAN "REVIEW FIELD" SEARCH
The most effective way to search the NoveList database for reviews is to use
the Boolean search and use the drop-down menu in front of the Find box (that
says "All Fields") to search on reviews only.
You can enter the term that you want searched in the reviews by selecting
Reviews in the drop down and then entering the word or phrase in the Find
box.
You can also combine more than one term by using the drop-down for the
Boolean operator (defaulted to AND but you can select OR or NOT, as well).
Let's look at a couple of examples.
MEMORABLE CHARACTERS
As you know, what defines a "good book" for one person may not for another.
It is always necessary to get the patron to describe why they like to read a
particular type of book or to describe what they enjoyed so much about a
favorite book.
Some readers define a good book by its characters and how they are portrayed
or developed. Frequently, reviewers also comment on a book's characters and
one way to find these types of books is to perform a Boolean Search on
"memorable characters."
1. Access NoveList and click the New Search button (or START button) to go
to the Search Selection page.
2. Select the Boolean Search link in the Search Our Database box.
3. Click the drop down and change "All Fields" to "Reviews."
4. In the box next to the Reviews drop down, enter: memorable characters
5. Select Adult (or another level if you are in NoveList K-8) for the level
and click the SEARCH button.
What You See: You will get a rather large list of titles that have reviews
that discuss the characters as memorable. Note that the books will be of
different genres and tastes. If you want to narrow this search, click on the
Revise Search link at the top of the search results page and follow the
steps below (as if inserted above after step 4).
5. Come down to the next line in the Find box. We want to use the AND
Boolean Operator because we want to narrow our search. Click the drop down
to change the field to search from "Author" to "Reviews" and in the next
box, type: starred review.
6. Leave Adult selected as the level and click the SEARCH button.
What You See: NoveList will retrieve a shorter list where all of the titles
have received a "Starred Review" notation and the review discusses memorable
characters.
There are endless variations.
* If your reader wants to do this search but would rather narrow it by
genre, then in the second row, where you entered Starred Review, change the
drop down to All Fields and enter a genre (mysteries, historical fiction,
etc.)
* You can narrow the search by only retrieving the most recent titles (Limit
by Publication date and enter 2000 through 2005).
SEARCHING REVIEWS FOR CHILDREN'S TITLES
You can also search reviews for children's titles on topics that you would
not find as a subject heading. Frequently parents and teachers are looking
for books that are good "read alouds" for their young readers. Or perhaps
someone is looking for read alouds with watercolor illustrations. Again,
the Boolean Search will work nicely here:
1. Access NoveList and click the New Search button (or START button) to go
to the Search Selection page.
2. Select the Boolean Search link in the Search Our Database box.
3. Click the drop down and change "All Fields" to "Reviews."
4. In the box next to the Reviews drop down, enter: read alouds.
5. Select children's and easy for the levels and click the SEARCH button.
What You See: NoveList will retrieve just over 100 titles where the review
suggests that the book will be a good "read aloud." If you want to narrow
this search, select the revise search link at the top of the search results
page and add a second search phrase. Click the drop down and change
"Author" to "Reviews" and then enter: watercolor illustrations. NoveList
will return a little over 20 titles that fulfill this search.
Keep in mind that when you search reviews, you are searching an uncontrolled
field - so that slight variations in your search terms occasionally can
return quite different results. In the example described above, we searched
for the plural form "read alouds." Searching reviews for "read aloud" will
return a much larger (1,491) list of results, which you can limit further to
meet your readers' needs.
FINAL TIPS
There are many ways to search reviews and some of the searches will "work"
better than others. When you search the reviews, go into the title record
and read through the review to see if it does what you expected.
* Be prepared to look through a few title records. You can use the Next
link at the top of the record to move from one title record to another
without having to return to the search results. I use the Next link and
look through the first four or five titles to see if the results I am
looking for are there.
* When I perform these types of searches, I click on the first title record
and then I use the Windows CTRL+F function and search the review for what I
typed in. If I use the CTRL+F function, I sometimes enter part of what I
searched for. For example, on our search of "memorable characters," I enter
"characters" in my CTRL+F search because sometimes, the word "memorable" and
"character" are separated in the review and if you type "memorable
characters" in the CTRL+F search, it will not find the terms, even through
the review does use them.
* And as stated earlier, check to see if the reviewer is using your search
terms to describe qualities of the book or to describe characteristics of
the story in the book. When you experiment with terms of your own, you will
find that if the terms are common words, you will have more of a mix of
results. You will still find reviews that address what you are looking for,
but you may have to check through more reviews. A good example of this type
of search is to search on "multiple story lines." You will have quite a few
titles where the review discusses the multiple story lines but you will also
retrieve some titles that discuss "multiple" as part of the plot of the
story.
But give it a try. Play around a little. This is a wonderful way to access
some "appeal factors" or other aspects of a book that you cannot address
with a subject heading.
Lynne Rohweder
NoveList - Marketing and Educational Services
919-489-9412 x203
lrohweder@epnet.com
NoveList is a product of EBSCO Publishing
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<H1><SPAN class=388092416-24032005>NoveList
Notes March, 2005</SPAN><FONT face=Arial
size=2></H1>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=388092416-24032005><EM>Please share by
forwarding to any other colleagues who would benefit from this content. The
searches in this Note will work in both NoveList and NoveList
K-8.</EM></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=388092416-24032005><STRONG>SEARCHING
THE FULL-TEXT REVIEWS IN NOVELIST</STRONG></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=388092416-24032005>Many of you know
that NoveList provides a very thorough subject heading treatment for its
titles. With over 36,000 subject headings, searching the database by
subject headings is very effective. However, there are a number of
additional unique ways to find books for you or your readers by searching the
over 100,000 reviews from Library Journal, School Library Journal, Publishers
Weekly, Booklist and Rendez-vous. </SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=388092416-24032005>Consider just a few
of the "types" of descriptions that you could search for using
reviews:</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=388092416-24032005>* Fast-paced<BR>*
Memorable characters<BR>* Strong characterizations<BR>* Read alouds<BR>*
Watercolor illustrations<BR>* Vignettes<BR>* Debut novels<BR>* Starred
review</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=388092416-24032005>Just as with any
full-text search, you will need to look at the individual reviews or show your
reader how to do so. NoveList will only return titles with reviews that
include your search terms, but the review may be describing the quality of the
novel ("a fast-paced adventure") or it might pull a review for a story where the
main character "has a fast-paced career." The review could describe an
author's "debut" novel or it could be discussing a character's "debut" on
stage. However, the above terms return a majority of titles where they are
describing qualities of the book. </SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=388092416-24032005><STRONG>USING THE
BOOLEAN "REVIEW FIELD" SEARCH</STRONG></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=388092416-24032005>The most effective
way to search the NoveList database for reviews is to use the Boolean search and
use the drop-down menu in front of the Find box (that says "All Fields") to
search on reviews only.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=388092416-24032005>You can enter the
term that you want searched in the reviews by selecting Reviews in the drop down
and then entering the word or phrase in the Find box. </SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=388092416-24032005>You can also combine
more than one term by using the drop-down for the Boolean operator (defaulted to
AND but you can select OR or NOT, as well).</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=388092416-24032005>Let's look at a
couple of examples.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=388092416-24032005><BR><STRONG>MEMORABLE CHARACTERS</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>As you know, what defines a "good book" for one person may not for another.
It is always necessary to get the patron to describe why they like to read a
particular type of book or to describe what they enjoyed so much about a
favorite book. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Some readers define a good book by its characters and how they are
portrayed or developed. Frequently, reviewers also comment on a book's
characters and one way to find these types of books is to perform a Boolean
Search on "memorable characters."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>1. Access NoveList and click the New Search button (or START button) to go
to the Search Selection page.<BR>2. Select the Boolean Search link in the Search
Our Database box.<BR>3. Click the drop down and change "All Fields" to
"Reviews."<BR>4. In the box next to the Reviews drop down, enter: memorable
characters<BR>5. Select Adult (or another level if you are in NoveList K-8) for
the level and click the SEARCH button.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>What You See:</STRONG> You will get a rather large list of titles
that have reviews that discuss the characters as memorable. Note that the
books will be of different genres and tastes. If you want to narrow this search,
click on the Revise Search link at the top of the search results page and follow
the steps below (as if inserted above after step 4). </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>5. Come down to the next line in the Find box. We want to use the AND
Boolean Operator because we want to narrow our search. Click the drop down
to change the field to search from "Author" to "Reviews" and in the next box,
type: starred review.<BR>6. Leave Adult selected as the level and click the
SEARCH button.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>What You See:</STRONG> NoveList will retrieve a shorter list where
all of the titles have received a "Starred Review" notation and the review
discusses memorable characters. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There are endless variations. <BR>* If your reader wants to do this search
but would rather narrow it by genre, then in the second row, where you entered
Starred Review, change the drop down to All Fields and enter a genre (mysteries,
historical fiction, etc.) <BR>* You can narrow the search by only retrieving the
most recent titles (Limit by Publication date and enter 2000 through 2005).
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>SEARCHING REVIEWS FOR CHILDREN'S TITLES</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>You can also search reviews for children's titles on topics that you would
not find as a subject heading. Frequently parents and teachers are looking
for books that are good "read alouds" for their young readers. Or perhaps
someone is looking for read alouds with watercolor illustrations. Again,
the Boolean Search will work nicely here:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>1. Access NoveList and click the New Search button (or START button) to go
to the Search Selection page.<BR>2. Select the Boolean Search link in the Search
Our Database box.<BR>3. Click the drop down and change "All Fields" to
"Reviews."<BR>4. In the box next to the Reviews drop down, enter: read
alouds.<BR>5. Select children's and easy for the levels and click the SEARCH
button.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>What You See:</STRONG> NoveList will retrieve just over 100 titles
where the review suggests that the book will be a good "read aloud." If
you want to narrow this search, select the revise search link at the top of the
search results page and add a second search phrase. Click the drop down
and change "Author" to "Reviews" and then enter: watercolor illustrations.
NoveList will return a little over 20 titles that fulfill this search.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Keep in mind that when you search reviews, you are searching an
uncontrolled field - so that slight variations in your search terms occasionally
can return quite different results. In the example described above, we
searched for the plural form "read alouds." Searching reviews for "read
aloud" will return a much larger (1,491) list of results, which you can limit
further to meet your readers' needs.</DIV>
<DIV><BR><STRONG>FINAL TIPS</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There are many ways to search reviews and some of the searches will "work"
better than others. When you search the reviews, go into the title record
and read through the review to see if it does what you expected. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>* Be prepared to look through a few title records. You can use the
Next link at the top of the record to move from one title record to another
without having to return to the search results. I use the Next link and
look through the first four or five titles to see if the results I am looking
for are there. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>* When I perform these types of searches, I click on the first title record
and then I use the Windows CTRL+F function and search the review for what I
typed in. If I use the CTRL+F function, I sometimes enter part of what I
searched for. For example, on our search of "memorable characters," I
enter "characters" in my CTRL+F search because sometimes, the word "memorable"
and "character" are separated in the review and if you type "memorable
characters" in the CTRL+F search, it will not find the terms, even through the
review does use them.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>* And as stated earlier, check to see if the reviewer is using your search
terms to describe qualities of the book or to describe characteristics of the
story in the book. When you experiment with terms of your own, you will
find that if the terms are common words, you will have more of a mix of
results. You will still find reviews that address what you are looking
for, but you may have to check through more reviews. A good example of
this type of search is to search on "multiple story lines." You will have quite
a few titles where the review discusses the multiple story lines but you will
also retrieve some titles that discuss "multiple" as part of the plot of the
story.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But give it a try. Play around a little. This is a wonderful
way to access some "appeal factors" or other aspects of a book that you cannot
address with a subject heading. <BR> </DIV></SPAN></FONT></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Lynne</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> <FONT
face=Arial size=2>Rohwe</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>der</FONT> <BR><I><FONT
face=Arial size=2>NoveList</FONT></I> <FONT face=Arial size=2>- Marketing and
Educational Services</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>919-489-9412 x203</FONT>
<BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>lrohweder@epnet.com</FONT> <BR><FONT
face=Arial> </FONT> <BR><I><FONT face=Arial size=2>NoveList is a product of
EBSCO Publishing</FONT></I> </P>
<DIV> </DIV></BODY></HTML>
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