Series Trial

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been exploring a couple of different vendors that add series information to our catalog. Currently, we have a trial for series info from both Syndetics and NoveList Select in our test catalog. I am very interested in receiving feedback on which service you feel is better.

A Couple of Notes

• For now, both the Syndetics and Novelist series info, if it exists, will be in the left bar. The Novelist series info has a label of "Titles in Series from NoveList" whereas the Syndetics label just says "Series." Please focus on the content, not placement, of the information. Once we decide on which service to use, I will work more on the formating.
• NoveList is doing some weird stuff. The first time I went to Interview with the Vampire, only the Syndetics series info showed but now both NoveList and Syndetics series info shows. However, this might have just been a momentary blip. Let me know if you're having the same experiences.
• NoveList loads very slowly. When doing your own comparisons, make sure the page has completely finished before you determine whether or not NoveList has series info for a specific title. I talked to a NoveList tech about this and he said one reason this is happening is because they wait for all the other content on the page to load before it loads. This is so patrons who just want a call number don't have to wait around for NoveList to load first. However, he also said they are working on speeding this up and hope to have it faster by the end of the year.
• At this point, Syndetics doesn’t have links but it does have the order specified. NoveList doesn’t show the order yet but that is a feature that is suppose to be in their next release.
• All the NoveList links point to our live production catalog. So, if you click on a link, make sure that you go back to the test catalog before trying any additional series info. When testing, make sure you always see the big red “TEST” image in the upper left corner of the catalog.

Some Examples to Try:

• Redemption by Karen Kingsbury - (Novelist)
• Third Degree by James Patterson - (NoveList and Syndetics)
• The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan - (Novelist)
• Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice - (NoveList and Syndetics)

Other NoveList Content
At the moment, I'm not officially evaluating the other NoveList Select content. However, I would be interested in hearing any opinions you have about it. My first impressions are that sometimes the NoveList Similar Titles is more relevant than LibraryThing for fiction but isn't at all useful for non-fiction titles. I also find the "Similar Authors" to be an interesting feature.