Today we're gonna look at a Reader's Advisory tool that's not just for books, but movies and music too!
Start at the home page Gnod.net
We'll start with the books option. You have 4 choices when looking at this page, the "Map of Literature" is my favorite. Type in one of your favorite Authors
Then you'll get this visual display of similar authors, the closer they are to the original author the more like they are supposed to be.
You can do the same with movies or gnovies
Again, the closer it is to the movie you entered the more like it it is. There are some other search options where you put in 3 authors, movies or bands to get different results. There are also some discussion forums.
15 comments:
Since this website is just developing it will be interesting to see how/if it improves in the future. The idea is neat, but my searches didn't yield much. I typed in three different sets of mystery authors - completely different styles and each time it recommend Joanne Fluke - which only partially made sense with the first set. The literature map was also interesting but when I did a search for John Grisham none of the other authors I know that do legal thrillers appeared. The two authors it listed as the closest were Griffin and Tom Clancy. So, here's looking towards future improvements.
For the most part, the various authors and movies related to my searches were accurate. There were a few hilarious misses, though, including a recommendation of The Unbearable Lightness of Being in relation to the film Aliens! The drifting ring of titles is an interesting visual cue, though, and I hope the service continues to improve.
Gnooks/Gnod
This will be another tool to use when patrons ask, what to read next. Gnooks looks like it will have some fine tuning to do.
First when I typed in my favorite author“Kingsolver, Barbara” the literature map showed mostly Teen authors nearby. Then I noticed a nearby for “Barbara Kingsolver” clicking on that I came to more logical kindred authors. Some of these authors were nonfiction writers as well as fiction ones. I thought Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) might be in Kingsolver’s map (Animal Vegetable Miracle), I did Not see him; but I did see her, when I looked at Pollan’s map. Probably he would appear I could zoom out from the map and see the outer constellations of the map {using the F11 key brings a little more room onto the webbrowsers page}. I also tried the Gnod suggestion and it recommended a single author Myra Goldberg (I can get thru Mobius), at first I was surprised, but then thought only 1 is good, I might actually be able to get to it.
I tried the music recommend – it gave me the musician Jody Messina – couldn’t find her but I did find a Jo Dee Messina (just some small tweaking). I put in 2 different artists (keeping one artist the same), it still gave me Jody Messina.
The movie suggestions seemed to be batting better than average, at first I wondered if they just had so many movies thrown in, that they were bound to list some I liked, but then I listed some movies that I disliked a lot – and they listed a number that I disliked.
I had hit and misses on my movies. However, being in infant form, this site could improve greatly and be used to a great exstent for patrons asking for recommendations. It is useful now but needs improvement
Wow these lessons get more and more helpful. I think this site is really neat. I always have trouble finding a book to read and this will make it easier finding a book with the authors that I already like, and it can "match" me up with an alike author. Very cool.
This is an interesting site. I was only on it for a minute and it was easy to maneuver around!
I went to the website, but it said that the site was for sale. I don't recommend.
@Justme I fixed the link, it should be working now.
I really like the idea behind this site. I am often looking for similar authors to read when I have enjoyed one. This is a site I know I will be using often.
I think this website has tremendous potential, but it isn't quite there yet. It is a site I want to keep an eye on because I think it will grow and change in ways that could make it far more useful as a reader's advisory too than it is presently.
I thought the map feature was cool. And I liked being able to read about what others thought of authors. I have had Gaiman recommmended to me previously but now that I am catching up on my lists to read and saw what others had said about him, I put several of his books on hold. He must be very popular when you can never find him on the shelf!
Much better! I liked the map, easy and interesting.ojzl
To be frank, some of these lessons are very informative but I'm not sure how much I would really use thatm. But this I really like. Maybe no so much as a definate source but just to play around with. I really like the expanding map. Very fun.
Whoa! Crazy moving words on the map! That I was not expecting. Fun though. It was more or less close to what I was thinking when I typed in authors or artists. My tastes are so eclectic that some of the recommendations were way off base for me.
I found the literature map visually annoying, like a floating eye chart. Ugh! A lot of my reading is serendipitous, so I doubt that I'd use this much.
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