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Finding a Book When You lot've Forgotten Its Championship

By

Gwen Glazer, Librarian

Nov 22, 2017

It can be tough to remember the title and author of a book yous read a long time ago—fifty-fifty if information technology was a book that was really of import to you. Fiction is cataloged past author and title, not by subject area or plot line, which makes identifying books past just their storyline difficult.

Readers oftentimes inquire librarians for help finding these kinds of books. And we can't figure out the mystery every single time, only nosotros practise have a few tricks to aid detect the answer.

First, pin down everything you tin remember about the book, plot, grapheme names, time flow in which the book may accept been published, genre, etc. All these details are clues in identifying the championship and author of the book.

Online resources can help with your search for a half-remembered book, even if all you take is a basic plot line. Searching yourself is a practiced place to showtime; and so, y'all can mail to a listserv or discussion forum, where someone might recognize it. Or, last but not least, leave a comment on this mail!

Before You Start

Try Google! Type in everything yous can remember about the book — as in, "flick book rabbi animals advice yiddish" — and roll through the results. (That's a existent-life example of a book a patron was asking for:Information technology Could Always Be Worseby Margot Zemach.)

You tin can too try googling one central particular you remember from a book. Ane of our librarians solved a book mystery by searching "USS You-Know-Who" — the name of a boat in the story that the patron happened to think. (Some other existent-life instance: She Flew No Flagspast Joan Manley.)

Crowdsourcing

• What's the Proper noun of That Book?
  A Goodreads group with searchable discussion posts and thousands of questions and answers.

• Name That Volume
  A LibraryThing grouping of ~3K members — many of whom are librarians or library-adjacent — who help solve book mysteries via threaded discussions.

• The Fiction_L listserv
  Stumpers! Search archives of past questions, answered by an intense book-ish community, or subscribe and post a new one.

• Reddit's whatsthatbook thread
  A nigh endless thread of users trying to help other users remember book titles, including several frequently requested books. Peculiarly good for scientific discipline fiction and fantasy.

• "Stump the Bookseller" web log
  A absurd indie bookstore in Ohio that maintains all-encompassing, searchable athenaeum — and offers a $four service for personalized help. Lots of children's books here.

• Large Volume Search
  If you can just call back what the cover looks like, attempt this cover-search tool.

Library Databases (log in with your library carte)

• Books & Authors

• Books in Print

• The New York Times databases

• NoveList and NoveList Grand-8 (in-library use but)

How to Motion On

Sometimes, it's just not going to happen, and you can't notice that elusive book you've been searching for. It's okay! Great news: The world is total of bang-up books! Hither are a few ways to observe more than...

• Cheque out recommendations from our book experts here at NYPL. We offer suggestions via blog posts, the Staff Picks volume finder, The Librarian Is In podcast, and more.
  
• If you'd like a personalized recommendation, find us on Twitter or fill out our What Should I Read Next? email course.
  
• Want a brand-new read? Check out our favorite New and Noteworthy titles.

Feel free to leave a annotate and tell us about a book you're trying to think! Our library staff members will pop in and check information technology periodically, and readers of this post are welcome to brand guesses and suggestions.

More Suggestions

• If you can think only one word, use the search function on Goodreads or Library Thing to find long lists of titles with a detail give-and-take.

• Goodreads' scan-able lists of titles that readers have shelved in unique categories, such equally authors' professions or decades of publication, is also be helpful.

• For recently published books, the reviews in Booklist Online are broken down by detailed genre.

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Source: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2017/11/22/finding-book-forgotten-title?page=7

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