Gale Cengage Offering RA Tool

At the Midwinter Meeting, Gale Cengage Learning's Marc Cormier January 13 provided a hot demo of its forthcoming readers' advisory tool, Books and Authors [an open web version is also available]. The subscription database pulls from the vendor's What Do I Read Next? print series (also an online resource, which this replaces) but has been adapted to include book reviews from more than 30 sources such as Publishers Weekly (and users can generate their own reviews), bibliographies, and links to social sites like del.icio.us. Users also can create reading and search lists in their user accounts.

The tool has a separate web component so that users searching for book and author info on Google and elsewhere will see Books and Authors listings in their results. The web listing gives searchers very basic info, with a hot button connecting users to their local library for fuller access. The database features book jackets as well as selected background information from such established Gale series as Dictionary of Literary Biography and Contemporary Authors.