Be spellbound by Sorcer!
- Explore our collections and find out what to read next
Sorcer is a user-friendly way to search for movies, music, and books held by Hamilton City Libraries. It is an alternative to our normal library catalogue. It is quick and easy to find what you want and has great features:
- Find new ideas for books, movies or music by using the tabs provided
- Browse the collection without using search terms
- Limit results by format, genre, audience, language, publication date and more
- Find similar books to one you’ve enjoyed
- Write reviews and rate things you’ve borrowed (and see other reviews and ratings)
To access Sorcer, click on the Sorcer icon on our website.
Anyone can browse and search using Sorcer, but to get the best out of it, you need to log in. Your current library card number is your username and your current PIN is your password. If you do not have one, please ask one of our staff to help you.
Once you have logged in, you can place reservations and see:
- a summary of your account (current loans, reservations, etc)
- suggested books, movies, and music for you based on your previous borrowing history
- recently reviewed titles (titles for which ratings and reviews have become available in the last two months)
To customize what you want to see in Sorcer, go to my account/preferences. From there, you can tick or untick boxes to your liking.
You can customise what your homepage looks like when you log in, by setting which suggestions and recommendations you’d like displayed. The My Account link is on the top right of the homepage.
Click on the preferences button to see the list of options you can have displayed - a small selection is featured above. Ticked selections will be displayed on your homepage when you login. If you don’t want to see something, just untick it. Click update at the bottom.
You also have a brief summary of your account. From here, you can click on My Account to take you through to the OPAC for a more details. You can also see your personal details, which you can update.
When you are logged in, you can explore the tabs at the top. In the screenshot below, we have clicked on the Books tab, then clicked on the symbol beside ‘Books for you’. Displayed is a visual list showing books we think you might like, based on your previous borrowing history.
There is also a recent biographies display, great news for our biography readers!
The Movies and Music tabs also show recommendations based on what you have borrowed. The What’s New tab shows you books, movies and music that have become available in the last two months.
Under the General |nterest tab, click on Browse. You can start your browsing by language, geographic area, or form/genre (see below).
Let’s look at the form/genre option of Detective and mystery stories. When you click on the link, you will see how many items are in that category. From there, you can narrow your search by refining.
Refinement options can be found on the right hand side of the page. You can refine by format (eg DVD), audience, fiction/non-fiction, language, biography, publication date, personal author, series, personal name, topic, geographic, time period, and form/genre.
In the example below we have expanded the topics menu, and we can narrow our search by clicking on one of the headings.
Using AND or NOT search terms, found at the top of the refine list, you can browse to find very specific books by including and excluding options. For example, you might want to find a detective and mystery book which doesn’t feature murder, is for an adult audience, and is set in Great Britain.
To exclude murder, select “not” at the top of the refine list, then click on topic to expand the list, and finally select murder. To adjust the audience, click on “and” at the top of the refine list and click on audience to expand the list, and finally choose adult. To choose the country, click on “and”, then geographic, and finally choose Great Britain. The refinement option defaults to “and” so remember to change it to “not” if you want to exclude something.
By expanding the refinement terms, you can pick and choose, so that your search looks like the image to the right:
Also note the rubbish bin icons to the left of the search terms. You can click on these to delete the refinement listed beside it, very useful when experimenting with searches. Also remember you can build as long, or as short, a search as you like.
- Search box
You can also use the search box at the top of the screen to search for subjects and books. You can refine your search as you go, in the same way as with browsing.
Using Sorcer, you can see similar titles and other titles by this author. This is great for giving you ideas of what to read next. These appear as clickable links, which take you directly to the item in our catalogue.
When you find a book which interests you, you can click on the book’s title, then click holdings and availability to see which libraries hold the book. You are able to reserve a copy if you are logged in. You can also use the search box at the top of the screen to search for subjects and books. You can refine your search as you go, in the same way as with browsing.
You can also add a review or rate a book you have read. Note the ratings and reviews you see in Sorcer are different to the ones you will see on the library catalogue.
Enjoy browsing through Sorcer. You never know what you might discover!
