#4 The Online Library

I chose to do the Gale Group Database's What Do I Read Next. I'm a big reader so this is something that appeals to me.

I've been fiddling around with this resource for awhile now and I have to say that I'm a little disappointed. The Author, Title/Series, and Custom searches are fine. They do exactly what you want them to do. The other applications are a little trickier.

With "Help Me Find a Book" you're asked to enter the title of a book you've enjoyed. I picked Carpe Jugulum, a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. A list comes up of all the books with the title you entered. There was only one for me, no surprise there. You're then given a list of "attributes" associated with the book within different categories and you're asked to pick the ones you'd like to include in your search. I chose Fantasy, Humor, Death, Vampires, Witches and Witchcraft, and Witches. This search pulled up only one book. Carpe Jugulum.

Now to me, including all those attributes in the search means I'm asking it to search for fantasy books, preferably humorous, dealing with death, vampires, or witches. To this database though, it means only search for books that have all of those. Seems counterintuitive, but then it could just be me.

If you don't include a lot of criteria then you will get a list of books to go through and they will have the attributes you indicated. So it does get the job done. I might recommend this resource to a patron, but I'm more likely to recommend Fantastic Fiction or Amazon. I have better luck with them.