Online Reader Tools

Thing #20:
I suggested Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly to Joe Patron.

Thing #21:
I signed up for several newsletters including:
Book Sizzle
Books on the Air
Children Picture Books
Mystery
Teen Scene

I will probably use these newsletters (particularly the Teen Scene) to keep up on the newest books. I also like to keep up on the books from popular radio and tv programs because patrons seem to ask for them a lot.

Thing #22:
I checked out the Adult Mysteries on Recommended Reads. I tried the topic of "Its getting very noir in here". I kind of want to try a noir mystery but after looking through a couple I'm not sure noir is for me...

Then I tried Adult Mysteries - Cooking up Crime - cause I saw this book at Barnes and Noble the other day, it was one of those paperback mysteries about a woman detective in a rural town and it was some sort of blueberry mystery and it had blueberry recipes in the book. This highly appealed to me for some reason so I meant to write down the title and look it up at the library but I forgot...I digress, but that's why I wanted to check out the Cooking up Crime mysteries :)
I seem to gravitate toward the baking mysteries...
I found the one I saw at Barnes and Noble! Its Town in a Blueberry Jam by B.B. Haywood. But the main character's name is Candy...I'm not sure I can read it now...
So I clicked on another title, Catered Halloween by Isis Crawford. Over on the "search for more" I chose cozy and culinary mystery stories to see what else it would pull up. I like browsing through all the different possiblities. You click on one book and you can get a whole other list of recommendations to the right from Novelist.
I think this is a great resource for me! And for patrons, though I think adult more than teens. Occasionally I have teens and adults ask for recommendations based on other books they have read, like Twilight or Hunger Games, Novelist would be very helpful in finding titles cause sometimes my poor brain can't think of any off the top of my head. But I don't think teens (or at least most teens) would use Novelist themselves. I do know of a few who would find it interesting but I don't really think they would use it often. Adult might use it more, my mom would LOVE Novelist. I'll have to recommend it to her :)
I would also recommend using Goodreads to patrons for finding recommendations. I also like how on Amazon you can look up a book and it will give you a list of other books similar or show you "customer who bought this item also bought". I personally find lots of ideas of other books I might like through this. I even use it when teens tell me a book they really liked and I want to find other books to recommend.