Online Book Communities

Online book communities allow users to connect with colleagues and fellow book lovers to share book reviews, find reading suggestions, and organize titles into different lists.  I do not have much experience with online book communities other than the occasional glance through a Goodreads list, so I was elated to have the opportunity to spend some time exploring these resources.  I took a look at five different book communities: Goodreads, LibraryThing, Shelfari, Booklikes, and Biblionasium.  After learning about the basic features on each site and practicing creating bookshelves, I took a screenshot of my profile with a program called Skitch (An AWESOME application that I’d never heard of before this experience but totally LOVE!).  Check out my findings and screenshots below!

Goodreads

Upon creating an account, Goodreads asks you to select your favorite genres and adds them to a feed that highlights titles in various genres.  I found this site a little tricky to navigate at first, but I was able to figure out how to create a new reading list and add books by searching for titles and adding them one at a time.  You can organize books into different shelves (by genres, theme, reading lists, etc.) and also mark them as to-read, read, or currently reading.  Once I got the hang of things, I created several different shelves including Hi-Lo books, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, and My Favorites.  It is very easy to sort books into different categories.  Goodreads allows users to rate books on a scale of 1-5 stars, and type out a review.  Once you rate a minimum of 20 books, Goodreads uses your preferences to provide book recommendations for you.  You can also connect with friends by searching or importing contacts from Twitter, Yahoo, or Facebook.  The biggest disadvantage I see to Goodreads is it would take a lot of teaching to use with students.  Another concern is student privacy.  Take a look at my profile below, which shows some information about me and features my recommended books for my 5^th graders:

 

 

LibraryThing
LibraryThing was initially a little overwhelming to me.  I noticed quite a bit of text on the homepage with a vast array of options and features.  This community definitely seemed to be geared more for adults and librarians in particular.  The first thing I did was look at my profile to see what I could add, and noticed that you can select favorite authors.  I picked a few of my favorites and visited their author pages in order to add them to my profile.  When I went back to my homepage, I noticed some guides to get started include this one: http://www.librarything.com/quickstart.php , which really helped it start to make more sense for me.  As I became more comfortable with the layout of this page by reading the guide and trying new things, I realized that they have some useful features including: book recommendations, connections with other users through groups, libraries or individual contacts, the ability to group titles into different collections, word clouds of authors and titles in my library, and authors currently in my library collection.  As a librarian, these features will be extremely useful and I’m looking forward to joining some of these groups in order to share ideas and network a bit.  I began browsing some threads in different groups and found people to be very supportive and helpful.  A few disadvantages of this site are that it would not be a good choice to use with students and it takes some time to really learn how to use the site effectively.  I also found the adding and organizing of titles a bit tedious, so I’ll have to keep playing around with it to see if there is a more effective method.  Here is my profile page showing a few of the things I added to my profile and collections:

 

 

 

Shelfari

Shelfari is very visually appealing and features a simple layout that made it easy to use right off the bat.  You can add contacts from Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and Yahoo, or just search by name.  There are thousands of groups based on a variety of topics; I found many groups for classes and school libraries as I browsed through the education groups.  When searching for books, you can locate titles through a title/author search or search by subject, most popular, series, or featured titles.  Once you locate a title and are ready to add to your shelf, you are prompted to add information such as whether you’ve read the book, the date you finished reading, a review and rating, and tags.  By adding this information, you can contribute to the body of knowledge on a title that is shared by the community.  I think that students could use this site fairly easily; my only concern is that their information would not be private.  Another disadvantage is it seems you are limited to the 6 standard shelves…at least I could not figure out how to add my own.  Here is my profile and some of the books that I added to my shelf:

 

Booklikes

Once you create an account, Booklikes asks you to select your favorite genres.  This helps the site know what your interests are and they can use it to formulate recommendations for you.  I really liked that this site offered a tutorial right away, to help me locate and learn about different features.  There is a lot to learn about this site, and it is different from the other communities that I explored in that it is a blogging site.  One feature I thought was neat was the timeline of your activity.  I also like that it makes blogging really easy, with a bar at the top to select the type of post you want to share:

 

You can select how you feel about the post, add a description and a source, and even note whether this post is a review or a spoiler.  To add books to your shelf, you simply search for a title and check a box for the shelves where you’d like to put the book.  This process was quick and efficient.  There were a few titles that I searched for that did not exist in their database, which surprised me.  Despite the many appealing features, I think I’m unlikely to use this site right now.  Although I feel that this tool could be effective with upper grades, I do not think students at my campus would be able to use it successfully.  As for my personal use, I feel that the format of this site is similar to others that I’m already currently adding to my repertoire including Twitter, Tumblr, and Feedly.  Here is my bookshelf on Booklikes:

 

Biblionasium

Biblionasium is a little different in that it is intended strictly for use in schools.  I set up an account and quickly browsed the features.  This site is awesome!  I’ve already created a group for my three classes this upcoming school year, and they are ready to add students.  I love that I can suggest books to my students as a group or individually, create reading challenges, and that the site helps them log their reading.  I’ve used reading logs for years, and this is a very neat way to have students keep track of their minutes.  For students without access at home, I’ll have to get them to log their time as they come in each day.  There is even a parent letter I can use to introduce the site to the parents of my students.  Students can write book reviews and share them with others (teachers can select to approve reviews before they are posted) and teachers can send students messages about their reading.  This site is also very kid friendly and I think that students would love it.  I’m so thankful to have found this resource and will definitely be using right away this year. 

 

Each book community has advantages and disadvantages, but the one that I like the most for student use is Biblionasium.  I think this is the most kid-friendly for 5^th graders, and that they will really enjoy using this tool to track their reading and participate in book challenges.  I also love the array of features for educators, as well as the consideration for student privacy through the framework of the site.  As for personal use, I likely will use both Shelfari and LibraryThing most often.   Though LibraryThings is complex, I’m very intrigued by the community and I feel it can be a valuable networking tool.  I most likely will use Shelfari for personal reading.  Online book communities are a powerful tool to engage students in a community of reading.  As a teacher and librarian, I can use online book communities to make connections, participate in discussions, discover new titles, and share thoughts about books I’ve read.