Savvy Browsing

At the library our fiction section is sorted alphabetically, usually by the author’s last name. That’s pretty handy if you’re trying to find a specific book or author quickly, but it means that, unlike nonfiction, you can’t go to one aisle and find a specific genre you might be interested in. Science fiction, romance, and horror are shelved among thrillers, westerns, and humor. So, how can you find something new to read when your go-to genre doesn’t have its own special area?

To make it easier for you, we’ve begun labeling them! Check for a sticker on the spine, right above the call number. Common stickers you’ll see will be the unicorn for fantasy and the magnifying glass for mystery. Not every book has a sticker, as some books don’t fall neatly into any particular genre, and some are holdovers from a time when we weren’t using the stickers. These stickers are an easy shorthand for you to use while browsing. If you see an unlabeled book that looks interesting, read the blurb on the back or inside cover. It may be just what you’re looking for!

If you want something a little more exhaustive, you can always use the online catalog. All the information for every book is in one spot, so you get a bird’s-eye view. This also has the benefit of being able to search, filter, and sort by any metric you want: title, format, and publication date, to name a few.

While the simplest option – and the default – is to search by keyword, you’ll find more relevant results if you search by subject. A keyword search finds every item listing with the keyword included. It could be anywhere in the listing: in the title, the summary, the subject headings, the reviews, etc. You can get some false positives this way. For instance, “All Quiet On the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque (FIC Rem) has nothing to do with cowboys. You’ll also miss out on everything that’s related but not described using that exact phrase. Rivers Solomon’s “Model Home” (FIC Solomon) is a haunted house story, but nowhere in the listing is the word “ghost”.

The subject headings standardize things to an extent. When you search the word “mystery” by subject, you will see all the different headings beginning with that word, as well as how many items have been described with that phrase. Through that, you can see that the “Mystery” heading on its own has about two hundred items listed, but “Detective and Mystery Fiction” has over four thousand items. Now you have a wide range of relevant titles for your next read!

As always, our librarians are here to help you if you need help finding anything in our collection or want a good book recommendation. We have thousands of books on our shelves for you to try. You might surprise yourself by falling in love with one that is outside a genre you usually read.

Check out what’s happening on our website at crawfordsvillelibrary.in.gov or call us at 765-362-2242. The library is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 1-5 p.m. Sunday.