Biblio File

Finding a Volume When You've Forgotten Its Championship

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Library books lined up on a shelf Bank check out selected results from NYPL Championship Quest 2019, held August two, 2019, as well as Title Quest 2018.

This is an update of a previous post past Sharon Rickson.

It can be tough to call up the title and author of a book you read a long time agone—even if it was a book that was really important to you. Fiction is cataloged by author and championship, non past subject or plot line, which makes identifying books by simply their storyline difficult.

Readers frequently inquire librarians for aid finding these kinds of books. And nosotros can't figure out the mystery every single time, just we do take a few tricks to help find the answer.

First, pin down everything you can remember well-nigh the book, plot, character names, time period in which the book may accept been published, genre, etc. All these details are clues in identifying the title and author of the book.

Online resource tin aid with your search for a half-remembered book, even if all you have is a bones plot line. Searching yourself is a good place to start; then, you lot tin mail to a listserv or discussion forum, where someone might recognize information technology. Or, last but not least, leave a comment on this mail service!

Before You Start

Endeavour Google! Type in everything yous can remember about the book — as in, "pic book rabbi animals advice yiddish" — and ringlet through the results. (That's a real-life example of a book a patron was asking for: It Could Always Be Worse by Margot Zemach.)

You tin can too attempt googling 1 key detail you recall from a book. One of our librarians solved a book mystery by searching "USS You-Know-Who" — the proper noun of a gunkhole in the story that the patron happened to call back. (Another real-life example: She Flew No Flags by Joan Manley.)

Crowdsourcing

  • What's the Proper name of That Book?
    A Goodreads grouping with searchable word posts and thousands of questions and answers.

  • Name That Book
    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 customs, or subscribe and mail a new one.

  • Reddit's whatsthatbook thread
    A nearly countless thread of users trying to help other users remember book titles, including several ofttimes requested books. Especially good for science fiction and fantasy.

  • "Stump the Bookseller" weblog
    A cool indie bookstore in Ohio that maintains extensive, searchable athenaeum — and offers a $4 service for personalized assist. Lots of children's books hither.

  • Big Book Search
    If you can but remember what the cover looks like, try this cover-search tool.

Library Databases (log in with your library card)

  • Books & Authors

  • Books in Print

  • The New York Times databases

  • NoveList and NoveList K-8 (in-library apply but)

More Suggestions

  • If you can call up just one discussion, use the search office on Goodreads or Library Thing to find long lists of titles with a particular word.

  • Goodreads' browse-able lists of titles that readers take shelved in unique categories, such as authors' professions or decades of publication, is as well exist helpful.

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

How to Move On

Sometimes, it'south just not going to happen, and you can't find that elusive book you lot've been searching for. It's okay! Great news: The world is full of great books! Here are a few means to find more...

  • Cheque out recommendations from our book experts hither at NYPL. Nosotros offering suggestions via blog posts, the Staff Picks volume finder, The Librarian Is In podcast, and more.
  • If y'all'd like a personalized recommendation, notice usa on Twitter or fill up out our What Should I Read Adjacent? e-mail form.
  • Want a brand-new read? Cheque out our favorite New and Noteworthy titles.

Feel free to leave a annotate and tell the states nearly a volume y'all're trying to retrieve! Our library staff members will pop in and bank check it periodically, and readers of this post are welcome to make guesses and suggestions.