Book Communities

 

Ever wonder how you could quickly and easily catalog the books that you personally own? The following websites allow you to do just that and so much more.

Goodreads (www.goodreads.com)

I have used this website in the past for recommendations on popular books by genre. I have also used it to get summaries for specific books and when looking for potential titles that could be added to our 9th grade curriculum. I have always liked Goodreads. This website could also be used to evaluate, rate, and review the books that a person has read. It was pretty easy to add books to this website. I absolutely love that I was able to logon to my Amazon account and transfer all the books that I have purchased from them. Goodreads also provides users with recommendations that match what they read. Overall, I really enjoy using this site.

LibraryThing (www.librarything.com)

At first I was a little bit confused with this website because it is completely different than Goodreads. But, I quickly caught on to its workings. This is a great site to catalog your home or classroom library in case you want to keep tabs on what you already own, what you are reading, and what you want to read. To add books to your library, simply click on the tab that says "Add books" at the top. You can search the database by the title of the book, the name of the author, the ISBN number, or a keyword or group of keywords. Once you have added a couple of books to your library, head back to the home screen. From the home screen, you can click on recommendations, and the site will provide you with a list of recommended books based on what you enjoy reading. The one problem I encountered on the site was that I was unable to connect through Facebook and Twitter. This may have been a temporary problem though. I would have liked to see how many of my friends are currently using this site though.

Shelfari (www.shelfari.com)

I was surprised to learn that Shelfari was created by Amazon. I was also surprised to see that none of my friends currenlty use this site. I have to contradict myself a bit here, but perhaps this isn't too big of a surprise since Shelfari isn't a site I was already familiar with or that I had heard of before. It took some time for me to figure out how to import my books from Amazon the way that Goodreads does. At first, I thought this was not an option, so I was a little disappointed. I had already started adding them one-by-one until my mouse somehow moved over the "My Shelf" tab and a menu appeared. Lo and behold, there was an "Import Books" tab that allowed me to quickly transfer all my purchased books onto my shelf. The good thing about adding them individually though is that it allows you to rate and review each book. One thing that I did not like is that Shelfari does not provide individualized recommendations like Goodreads or Library Thing.

Booklikes (www.booklikes.com)

Booklikes took a little bit longer to create because you literally had to verify your account first, set up your profile and blog, look at blogs, then find friends, and then finally you could get started with the actual website. This took a little bit longer than I like to spend on startups. This site seems a lot more like Facebook for actual books. I wasn't too thrilled with it especially since people post about what they are reading and some people actually tell you what they literally read. I don't like spoilers like that. This website does not have an option to import books from another place such as Amazon which means you have to search and add each book individually. It does take a bit of time, and you need to be aware of when the tab switches from "Shelf" to "In Shelf". Otherwise, you will think that it is still loading or adding to the shelf. Also, there aren't any tabs to take you back to the home screen or to your shelf when you are adding books. You have to retype the website address or click on the logo to go to the Home page. I was not too thrilled with this website. It seemed to offer the least amount of options for users. I did not find any recommendations apart from what users posted that they were reading.

Biblionasium (www.biblionasium.com)

 

Biblionasium was a little bit different than the other sites because it allows you to create groups for students. It also allows you to level off groups and books. This is a neat resource for teachers and librarians. You decide how to group students (by class period, reading level, interests, etc.). Books can be added to individual groups or to all groups. The teacher can decide to recommend the book for all groups, single groups, or to only certain students. Each book comes with a short summary. The teacher an add a recommendation to it and to review it personally. It will take a bit to set up personally, but it seems like a wonderful resource.