Bibz Tip#4 Get more from your Formats!

Picture Books, Board Books, Easy Readers and more!

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For our demo we’ll use the Children’s Point Plan to look at different formats available. Let’s start by browsing the March special list.

Browsing the March List

Scrolling through the March special list we’ll see there’s a lot of Hardcover, and Reinforced books available. But we know there’s more to kids books than just what’s on the monthly pick lists. And there’s more types of kids books than just Hardcovers. We’ll click the Search tab to explore our options.

The search tab lets you customize by all types of search criteria. You’ll see formats listed below where you can customize by binding…. But just below that you’ll see descriptors which give you a few more ways to limit your search and more importantly a way to distinguish between different type of “hardcovers”. By default the “All” boxes are checked next to each category. We’ll continue our demo by searching just for “Board Books”. Uncheck the “All Descriptors” box then click the select box next to just the “Board Book”. Hit “Search” at the top of the screen.

That’s a lot of Board Books!

Our search for all the Board Books in McNaughton Inventory Turned up almost 14,000 results. The purple “BB” tile indicates when a “Hardcover” formatted book is really a Board Book. Even sorting by Demand it’ll take a while to go through this list so we’ll “Refine Search”.

Let’s narrow down what we’re looking for when it comes to Board Books. (NOTE: You may need to scroll down to see these additional limits.) We’re looking to reach the Pre-K set. Even though they’re board books we still may want the newest publications. Not sure what’s good – how about seeing if the title’s been reviewed. You can limit by which publication carried the review, when that review appeared, or how many times it’s been reviewed. Then hit “Search” to refine your results for Board Books.

Refined Results

With our refined search parameters we’ve found 16 board books published in the last six months that have been reviewed at least twice. A quick browse of the titles and it looks like there’s some fun animal stuff to hook the littlest ones into “Paws to Read”. Click the QTY boxes, create a list, and hit apply if they look good.

Remember to use your Search Tab!

Today we looked at the “Descriptor” as a way to find particular types of children’s books. We did “Board Books” but you could also use the descriptors to find, Chapter Books, Easy Readers, and more. Explore some of the other search options. They’re a great way to help you add specific types of books to your collection.