Lexile
For books, a Lexile text measure (also called Lexile measure or just Lexile) is a numeric or alphanumeric code that indicates the reading difficulty of a particular text. The scale ranges 5 to 2000; lower numbers indicate a lower difficulty and higher numbers indicate a higher difficulty. (A first chapter book might get a Lexile measure of "5"; a graduate-level text might get a Lexile measure of "2000".) A Lexile measure is typically found on book vendor websites or in a book as a number followed by an L—such as "880L", which means "880 Lexile". (The number followed by the spelled-out word is the format used in MARC records.) Lexile text measures are only assigned by the MetaMetrics company and are only applied to books, e-books, magazine articles, and other print material.
For people, the same scale is used but is called the Lexile reader measure (also called "Lexile measure" or just "Lexile"), and indicates an individual's approximate reading ability. Any book between 100 less than and 50 more than the person's indicated Lexile measure is considered to be within that person's reading comprehension range; books with lower Lexiles will be simple, and books with higher Lexiles will be challenging. Therefore, it is important to enable catalog users to search for everything within a given range of Lexile measures.
Marcive sends us the Lexile data for our newly cataloged records, so catalogers do not need to add Lexile data to catalog records. However, since Lexiles may also be found in some WorldCat records, catalogers need to be aware of how Lexile data must be formatted in order to for local catalog searches to work. Lexile numbers are included in an audience note in the MARC record.
Format
Most Lexile text measures consist only of a number. Sometimes, the number itself is insufficient to determine whether a book is appropriate for a given person. Therefore, some Lexile text measures are prefixed by or consist only of a two letter Lexile code. The Lexile codes are:
| Code | Meaning (Explanation) |
| AD | Adult Directed (the book is designed to be read to a child rather than by a child) |
| NC | Non-Conforming (the book's Lexile measure is significantly higher than typical for the intended audience) |
| HL | High-Low (the book's Lexile measure is significantly lower than typical for the intended audience) |
| IG | Illustrated Guide (the book consists of lots of independent pieces of text, such as an illustrated encyclopedia; a book with lots of pronunciations or definitions in parentheses or contrasting time; a book with lots of pull-quotes, factoids, and other marginalia; or a book with discrete topics on each one or two pages) |
| GN | Graphic Novel (the book is a graphic novel or a comic book) |
| BR | Beginning Reading (the book has a Lexile of 0 or a negative number and are appropriate for beginning readers; only the code appears, not the number) |
| NP | Non-Prose (more than 50% of the book is not prose, but rather poems, plays, songs, recipes, text that consists of incomplete sentences or lacks punctuation, etc.; only the code appears, not a number) |
These codes are very important to patrons and staff searching for material that is appropriate for a particular reader. If you omit them, the resulting data can be extremely misleading.
In order to index the Lexile measures in the CCS database in such a way as to allow patrons and staff to search for all books with a range of Lexile numbers, the data must be formatted as follows.
| What appears in the Lexile database: | What appears in our database: |
| 880L | 521 8_ 880‡bLexile.
|
| AD880L | 521 8_ AD 880‡bLexile.
|
| NC880L | 521 8_ NC 880‡bLexile.
|
| HL880L | 521 8_ HL 880‡bLexile.
|
| IG880L | 521 8_ IG 880‡bLexile.
|
| GN880L | 521 8_ GN 880‡bLexile.
|
| BR | 521 8_ BR‡bLexile.
|
| NP | 521 8_ NPLexile.
|
Correcting OCLC Copy
While almost all of the Lexile data in our catalog is supplied by Marcive, you may find Lexile data in WorldCat records. Please make sure this data is correctly formatted when cataloging these records, so that the records are indexed correctly for Lexile searching.
In order for the Lexile search to work, "Lexile" must appear in ‡b. Previously, a space was required after the prefix and the L needed to be removed after the number. However, Polaris indexes the field properly without making these changes.
| What's in WorldCat | Locally change it to this |
521 8_ Lexile: 880. |
521 8_ 880 ‡b Lexile.
|
521 8_ Lexile: AD880L. |
521 8_ AD880L ‡b Lexile.
|
521 8_ Reading level: 5; Guided Reading Level: V; Lexile: 830L. |
521 0_ 5.
|
Searching
In Polaris staff client and Leap, Lexile values may be searched as Keyword. In PowerPac, search results may be limited with the Lexile facet.