At the library, we are always excited to help you find new authors to explore, although our current ability to hang out and talk books is limited by pandemic closures. Fortunately, our catalog has some neat ways to help you slide from one author you like to another, and today I’d like to highlight the way “additional contributors” can factor in.
First of all – what is an additional contributor? This is someone else, other than the author, who contributed to the creation of a book – often, the additional contributor field is used to indicate the reader of an audiobook; or the translator on a book that has been translated into English. The additional contributor is named in an informational field in the catalog record.
An audiobook narrator may narrate many different styles of book – mysteries, fiction, nonfiction. Likewise a translator will work in one or two languages, but otherwise may translate a variety of materials. Still, narrators and translators are lending their voice and their style to these works, so if you like the interpretation and voice of a certain reader, or the prose style of a particular translator, you may also like that person’s work elsewhere. It’s worth a try!
Handily, the additional contributor is linked in the catalog record of the books they work on, down in the Details tab underneath the book description. (If you’re looking for audiobook narrators, you’ll need to make sure you’ve selected the audio format of the title – either CD or eAudiobook). So you can click on their name, and be taken to a page of search results for other things they’ve worked on:
In this example, popular audiobook narrator Grover Gardner voices one of the latest titles in the Andy Carpenter mystery series by David Rosenfelt (Muzzled). Gardner also narrates literary fiction like the novels of Paulette Giles, and many works of nonfiction. If you like his voice, he could take you to many different genres!
Meanwhile, below you can see that Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin is translated by Megan McDowell, who is then listed as the Additional Contributor. If you click on her hyperlinked name, you’ll find two pages of other books she’s translated – I noticed from browsing that list that she mostly translates Spanish-language materials from Latin America! Neat.
So give it a try! Experiment. Let us know if you get stuck, and definitely let us know if you find something really good!
~ posted by Andrea G.
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