Welcome to Memorial Library's NoveList K-8 tutorial!
Novelist is a great resource for teachers, or anyone who wants to find good books for kids.
Let's say you're a teacher who has, for some reason, never heard of Harry Potter. Everyone in your classes is reading books about him. Can you find out more about it? Can you find them other books to build their love of reading?
Novelist K-8 can help!
First, start at the library homepage:
http://library.cortland.edu
Under the "Find Articles" tab, click on "Databases: by Title."
This is a list of the library's databases by title.
Let's go to "N."
Scroll down to "Novelist K-8".
Here we are.
If you're off-campus, there will be an additional screen after you click on "Novelist K-8" that requests your C-Number.
Here we are at NoveList... and what's on the main page?
The start page often has articles and material that is in the news or otherwise relevant. It's tempting to stop here, but let's keep going.
To get started, click on the "Search Our Database" tab at the top of the page.
NoveList K-8 includes a number of options for searches - authors, title, and even plots or topics (like "death and dying" or even "dogs and cats."
Let's see if we can find something about this Harry Potter series.
We start by typing in our search words into the box.
Take a quick look at these options for limiting your search. Might you find any of them useful?
In our case, what we have is good enough.
Here's our list. It's often best to start with the first one, but I'll choose Number 4.
If you're a Cortland student, remember that the library doesn't have every book listed in the database. You should run a search through the catalog. A book we don't have might be held at a nearby library, or available through interlibrary loan if you have some time to wait.
Let's see... it's appropriate for children...
The entry includes a description of the book...
Here's its lexile rating. What's that? We'll find out in a minute.
And it's got four out of four stars. Let's take a look.
Lots of good stuff here! We've got a summary of the book...
A list of subjects that are included...
The previous book in the series...
There's that "lexile" word again. It gives the reading level of the book.
Here's a list of lexile ranges by grade. Students will often fall outside those ranges, of course, but the lexile rating makes it easier to identify their reading levels.
Remember - the lexile reading for this book is 880. That'll come in handy in a second.
Reviews and more reviews, all from good places like Booklist and School Library Journal...
Here are links to other articles in Novelist - some about wizards, some about the awards it's won, and some about Harry.
The author's web site might be good for interesting activities.
Here's a list of formats. Hey - it's available on CD! I can listen in the car...
Let's go back to the top.
There's more to reading than Harry Potter, of course. How can we get students interested in other authors?
Maybe we can find similar books... and there's a button for that to the left.
Here is a checklist of the topics we saw earlier. Using these, I can search for books with the same topics.
Let's see if I can't cut this list down.
Award-winning books are nice, but maybe keeping it to books that have won these particular awards is too much.
I'm not sure that I want to concentrate on books about another country. Anywhere there are Harry Potter-like adventures is fine with me.
Plus, there are two that are too specific for a good search. Can you pick them out before we continue?
Here's where the lexile range comes in handy.
It's usually best to look for books that are between 50 below or 100 above.
What was that number for Goblet of Fire?
Ah, yes... 880. So...
Let's run this search!
The first few titles are Harry Potter books again!
The search we just ran is based on "OR", so we get all the books for those topics. These are ranked in order of how many boxes are checked. Thus, the Harry Potter books are the best matches for a Harry Potter book.
Ah. Lower down are some non-Harry Potter books on the same topics.
Let's look at some other options that NoveList gives us.
If you're not sure what book you want to use, the Browse Lists are a great resource. You can search award-winning books, or just look at the offerings.
We can choose an age group...
And a topic...
Finally, let's look at Teacher Resources.
You can use these links to find great picture-book activities, book talks to get them excited about particular titles, and other articles that can give you ideas for class.
Thanks for using our NoveList tutorial!