Biblio File

Finding a Volume When You've Forgotten Its Title

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Library books lined up on a shelf Check out selected results from NYPL Title Quest 2019, held August 2, 2019, also as Title Quest 2018.

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

It can exist tough to think the title and author of a book you lot read a long time ago—even if information technology was a book that was really important to y'all. Fiction is cataloged by author and title, not by subject area or plot line, which makes identifying books past merely their storyline difficult.

Readers frequently ask librarians for help finding these kinds of books. And we can't figure out the mystery every single fourth dimension, simply nosotros practice take a few tricks to help find the answer.

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

Online resources tin aid with your search for a one-half-remembered book, even if all you have is a basic plot line. Searching yourself is a good place to start; so, you tin postal service to a listserv or give-and-take forum, where someone might recognize it. Or, concluding but non least, leave a comment on this postal service!

Before You Start

Try Google! Type in everything you tin can remember about the book — equally in, "film volume rabbi animals communication yiddish" — and scroll through the results. (That's a real-life example of a book a patron was asking for: It Could Always Exist Worse by Margot Zemach.)

Y'all can also endeavour googling one cardinal detail y'all recollect from a book. One of our librarians solved a volume mystery by searching "USS Y'all-Know-Who" — the proper name of a gunkhole in the story that the patron happened to remember. (Some other real-life instance: She Flew No Flags by Joan Manley.)

Crowdsourcing

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

  • Name That Volume
    A LibraryThing grouping of ~3K members — many of whom are librarians or library-side by side — who help solve book mysteries via threaded discussions.

  • The Fiction_L listserv
    Stumpers! Search archives of by questions, answered by an intense book-ish community, or subscribe and mail service a new one.

  • Reddit'southward whatsthatbook thread
    A nearly countless thread of users trying to aid other users recollect volume titles, including several frequently requested books. Specially good for science fiction and fantasy.

  • "Stump the Bookseller" web log
    A cool indie bookstore in Ohio that maintains extensive, searchable archives — and offers a $iv service for personalized help. Lots of children's books hither.

  • Big Volume Search
    If y'all can only remember what the cover looks like, try this embrace-search tool.

Library Databases (log in with your library menu)

  • Books & Authors

  • Books in Print

  • The New York Times databases

  • NoveList and NoveList Yard-8 (in-library employ only)

More Suggestions

  • If y'all can remember just 1 word, employ the search function on Goodreads or Library Thing to find long lists of titles with a particular word.

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

  • For recently published books, the reviews in Booklist Online are cleaved down by detailed genre.

How to Move On

Sometimes, it's simply not going to happen, and you tin't observe that elusive volume you've been searching for. It's okay! Great news: The earth is full of great books! Here are a few ways to detect more...

  • Check out recommendations from our book experts here at NYPL. We offer suggestions via blog posts, the Staff Picks book finder, The Librarian Is In podcast, and more.
  • If you'd like a personalized recommendation, discover us on Twitter or fill up out our What Should I Read Next? e-mail form.
  • Desire a make-new read? Check out our favorite New and Noteworthy titles.

Experience free to leave a annotate and tell us almost a book you're trying to remember! Our library staff members will pop in and bank check it periodically, and readers of this post are welcome to brand guesses and suggestions.