Fiction Connection

I had another look at Fiction Connection today (a reader's advisory resource on Global Books in Print available to Eastern Regional Libraries members) and realised what a fantastically cool resource this is.

Now I don't like to read lists to find new titles, I'm more of a visual person, so I love the way that Fiction Connection uses the visual Aquabrowser to make the connections between genres & topics. This won't make any sense yet. I'll take you through the steps to searching Fiction Connection and hopefully you'll see what I mean.

1. From the library's Online Resources page, scroll down to the resources under Reading & Libraries and click on the H next to Global Books in Print (to access from home).

3. Enter your library card number at the prompt. You will be taken to Global Books in Print.





















4. Click on The Fiction Connection link on the right-hand side of the screen (under Complimentary Resources)

5. There are two ways of searching. You can type in the title of a book you really enjoyed into the search box at the top or you can click on one the the keywords listed below under topic, genre, setting, character, location, timeframe.


















6. I love Janet Evanovich books so let's see if I can find any titles like her first Stephanie Plum book One for the Money. Enter that title and click the Go button.





7. If there is more than one result, click on the Find similar button next to your title.













8. Change the Sort drop-down menu to sort by year.














If I click on any of the book titles I can read summaries and reviews. From there I can write down a few titles and check to see if the library has them. At present I haven't got any of these linked into the catalogue.

OK, so that was searching with the title. The really cool bit is searching with the keywords.

I read a lot of true crime books and crime novels. For this search we'll look for books on serial killings (I know.......not the cheeriest topic).

1. Click on the green Topic button.


















2. Click on the keyword serial killings.




















3. The Aquabrowser shows the topic I clicked on in the middle and other related topics. Topics in white are associations, topics in yellow are translations, lime green topics are spelling variants and orange topics are the discovery trail (like a history of topics you've clicked on).

4. If I wanted titles that featured Forensics I would click on the topic labelled Forensics in the Aquabrowser. Forensics is now located in the middle and the results displayed at the right are fictional titles featuring serial killings and Forensics.

I can write down a few titles and check to see if the library has them.

Why not try Fiction Connection with your own interests? You have to be a member of Eastern Regional Libraries to use this resource.

Cheers, Maryanne