Fantastical World of Subscription Databases, Part Two: Books In Print

What do I want to read next? Library readers have been asking that since the days of scrolls in the Alexandrian library. And while the launch of "Scrolls in Print" never made the history books as a particularly great innovation, Books in Print (BIP) deserves a place in the Readers' Hall of Fame.

If addition to the obvious (letting you know which books are in print), BIP lets you browse fiction by subject, award, or author. You can even type in a year and get the best sellers for that year.

BIP can give you information about particular books such as whether they are available in audio format(s), listings of when a book has been mentioned in the media, author bios and more.

The special children's area allows you to search for books by favorite series', picture books, recurring characters in children's works, and children's award winners.

One of the funkiest features of BIP is the Fiction Connection's "Aquabrowser". For those folks who like to "think visual", the Aquabrower creates a map of topics once you pick a category such as genre, setting, character, location, and timeframe. The map looks a little like a cluster of cocktail toothpicks, each with a different keyword on it. If you click on a toothpick keyword, your map will re-form and gives you a different set of related keywords. Meanwhile, on the other side of your browser window, you get a list of books related to your topic and if you find one you like, you can hit the "find similar" button and get even more books that are similar to the one you already love.

Lastly, (okay not lastly, but we can't get into every detail in a short blog entry), you can set up a "My Favorites" account that will allow you to save lists of your favorite books, build customized searches, and get alerts when books that meet your criteria are released.

See you next time for another one of our Merely Marvelous databases......