Books & Authors Database: How to use Books & Authors

For many patrons, finding a book that interests them can be time-consuming. Match their reading interests with Gale Books and Authors, a reader’s advisory database that makes finding a great read much less challenging. With fun ways to browse, an intuitive design, read-alikes, reviews, award winners and themed book lists, and more this resource answers the age-old question, “What do I read next?”

Gale Books and Authors provides a set of predefined search and browsing options. You may enter terms in a single field, in several fields, or in all of the fields present or simply click through items on a page to browse. For most of the searches, if you enter terms in more than one field, the search automatically uses the AND search operators, looking for entries that contain each of the terms in the specific fields. 

Title or Series Search

There are two different ways to search for specific titles:

1. You can enter the complete title of a work or series name or any word, beginning of a word, or combination of words known to be in the title in the Basic Search box and click on the magnifying glass on the right side of the search box. "Title" is the default basic search. 
2. You can search on a title in combination with other information in Advanced Search by entering the complete title or a work or series name or any word, beginning of a word, or combination of words known to be in the title in the top search box (which defaults to a title search). You can then add other search terms in the other search boxes and click the "search" button. 

You can click on the "Author Search" link and enter a complete name or any word or combination of words known to be part of the author's name in the search box. 

Not sure what title you're looking for? Have fun browsing for titles using the "Browse Genres" or "Book Lists."

There are two different ways to conduct a keyword search.

1. You can enter a subject term or phrase in the Basic Search box, select "Keyword" in the drop-down list, and click on the magnifying glass on the right side of the search box.
2. You can search on a keyword in combination with other information in Advanced Search by entering a subject term or phrase in the top search box and selecting "Keyword" from the drop-down list to the right of the box. You can then add other search terms in the other search boxes and click the "Search" button. 

Upon clicking Search, a list of titles will appear that have this term or phrase within the author, title or subject guides. Clicking on any of these titles will take you to the entry for that book. 

One or more fields may be filled in to create a customized search. You can search a combination of any of the following search types by selecting them from the drop-down lists to the right of the search boxes: Title, Author, Keyword, Series, and Gale Document Number. You can add more search boxes by clicking the "Add a Row" hyperlink located below the standard three boxes. Fields can be connected by "And" operators (default) or you can change that option to "Or" or "Not". 

Below the search boxes, there are more options to search. Any of these options may be selected without a search term being entered in the main search box. All of the search boxes in this section employ the "And" search operator: 

• By Publication Year: Allows you to limit your search by publication year according to several different options.
• By Book Category and Genre: Allows you to limit your search to either "Fiction" or "Nonfiction". Selecting "Fiction" presents additional options for narrowing further to Genres and Subgenres. 
• By Audience: Allows you to limit your search to books for children, young adult, or adult. You may select more than one audience type.
• By Location: Allows you to limit your search to a particular setting of the work (e.g., "New York City" or "Africa").
• By Time Period: Allows you to limit your search by the time period in which a work is set (e.g., 20th century AD). A pre-set pick list of time periods is provided. Typing in the search box allows you to search within the pick list. 
• By Subject: Allows you to limit your search by a particular subject (e.g., "Unicorns" or "War"). A pre-set pick list of subjects is provided. Typing in the search box allows you to search within the pick list. 
• By Character: Allows you to limit your search by a type of character (e.g., "10th Grader"). A pre-set pick list of subjects is provided. Typing in the search box allows you to search within the pick list. 
• By Named Character: Allows you to search by a character's name (e.g., Hermione"). 

There are three different ways to search for authors:

1. You can enter a complete name or any word or combination of words known to be part of the author's name in the Basic Search box, select "Author" in the drop-down list, and click on the magnifying glass on the right side of the search box. 
2. You can search on an author name in combination with other information in Advanced Search by entering a complete name or any word or combination of words known to be part of the author's name in one of the search boxes and selecting "Author" from the drop-down list to the right of the box. You can then add other search terms in the other search boxes and click the "Search" button. 
3. You can click on the "Author Search" link and enter a complete name or any word or combination of words known to be part of the author's name in the search box. This search also allows you to search by gender, nationality, ethnicity, occupation, place of birth, and/or death date.

For any of the above searches, upon clicking Search, a list of authors with occupation and date of birth/date of death will appear. Clicking on any of these will take you to a listing of works by that author that are in Gale Books and Authors. Illustrators and other creators are also searchable as part of the Author Name index.

You can access a biography about the author by clicking on the hyperlinked author's name on the search results page or within the book record. 

The Browse Genres feature allows you to find a book based on its associated Genre and Story Type/Subgenre. 

There are two different ways to browse genres:

1. You can click on any of the links within the "Select a Genre" section on the left-hand side of the homepage. 
2. You can click the "Browse Genres" button.

Clicking on a genre in either case will show a list of titles and their associated book covers for you to browse. You can navigate through the pages of results at this point or dig a little deeper into the genre by then selecting one of the story types or subgenres that appear to the left of your browse results. Once a term is selected, the book jackets and titles will change to match the genre/subgenre combination you've chosen. Clicking on a book jacket or title will then take you to the full entry for that book. You can also filter your results to age-appropriate titles by clicking on the "Children", "Yount Adult", or "Adult" buttons at the top of the results. 

Clicking on the "Book Lists" button allows you to access various lists that have been created by the Gale Books and Authors editors. You can select lists from three different categories, which are hyperlinked at the top of the Book Lists section: Award Winners, Expert Picks, and Librarian Favorites. 

• Cite: The Cite tool generates document citations in MLA 9, APA 6, and Chicago 17 formats. 
• Send to: The Send To tool allows you to email full-text content or export documents to Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. 
• Download: The Download tool provides a PDF download of the document for offline reading.
• Print: The Print tool allows you to print a hard copy of the document.
• Get Link: The Get Link tools provides a reliable permalink for the document. 
• Accessibility Tools: Several tools are available to help you better interact with the text. 
  • The Translate tool lets you translate the documents into 40 different languages. 
  • The Font Size tool allows you to increase or decrease the document's font size. The change will persist throughout your session.
  • The Listen tool provides text-to-speech audio. The text will be highlighted as the content is read aloud. You can also download an MP3 for future listening. 
• Quick Send: The Quick Send area gives you easy access to the most popular tools. 
  • Send to Google Drive
  • Send to Microsoft OneDrive
  • Email the document
  • Download a PDF