Online Book Communities

I’ve explored a couple of online book communities such as Goodreads, LibraryThing, Shelfari, Booklikes, and Biblionasium. These are social cataloging websites for shelving books. Each and every one of these provide virtual bookshelves, which allows the user to put their books in shelves either by titles, book ratings, favorite reads, future reads, and by additional shelving titles the user may create. These online book communities were easy to work with, although some had more tabs than others and took me some more time to figure out, but I still managed to place my books in the shelves I wanted them to be in. Read the extra comments I’ve added in each of the different color boxes to help you navigate each cataloging site.

Goodreads

I didn’t spend a lot of time shelving my books with Goodreads. It was extremely user friendly and I did not have a problem navigating the site. The main feature that I benefited from and made my uploading of book titles quick was that it allowed me to upload my books straight from Amazon using my account. Once I logged in using my Amazon password, I chose the books I’ve purchased from amazon and automatically the book images loaded up to my main shelf. While I was still on my Amazon account, I was able to mark the book as read, to read, currently reading, or book owned. The books were automatically shelve as I had marked them. I added the owned shelve. I like the view of the “my books” page. It is easy to follow and read. I think my middle school students would enjoy shelving their books using Goodreads.

LibraryThing

As I became a member, LibraryThing asked me to type in the author’s name of a book it showed me to verify I’m not a robot. After that, it provided with the option to connect to social media such as Twitter and Facebook. It asked me if I needed to view a tutoring video to manage site, I think this is a great idea for those of us that are new to the site and don’t know how to navigate through it. It allowed me to use Amazon.com, but it didn’t have access to all of my books saved under my Amazon purchases. I had to search each book I needed by typing the title of each book- one at a time. It was time consuming. It allowed me to shelve my books in the following shelves: wishlist, currently reading, to read, read, owned, and by favorites. When I typed in the book title of a book I had already shelve, it prompted me that the ISB# had been duplicated. I like this feature.

Shelfari

Shelfari provided three pre-created book shelving categories. It provided me with plan to read, reading now, and with I have read shelve. I didn’t add any other shelves as these three worked for me. It allowed me to access Amazon.com to upload my books, but not my personal amazon book purchases or amazon wish list like Goodreads did. Shelfari was simple to use too, but I had to search books one at a time by typing in on the search bar the book’s title. It was also time consuming. As I found each book, the system took me through different windows before the book could be saved in the shelf I had chosen for it. It asked me to shelve the book, share the book, write book extras, then it took me to my edition tab, and finally I had to tag the book. I had to go through these five windows before the book could be shelve. If I chose to shelve the book in the “read shelf” it provided extra options in reference to the book. It asked dates for when the user began reading the book and when the user finished reading the book. The main page looks awesome after all the books have been shelve. 

Booklikes

Booklikes asked me for prefer reading genres like Goodreads and Shelfari, as I was subscribing to its site. Before I could start shelving or adding books to my account, I had to create a book blog. I had to go back to the main page a couple of times to unchecked the box for book blog, but it would still take me to create a blog, therefore, I created the book blog. Only then it allowed me to start searching for books to shelve. The shelving page had two search bars for searching books. I couldn’t find books using the bottom search bar, but I did using the search bar found at the top of the page. The books I searched for did not automatically showed up on the book shelf I had chosen, as I was shelving them, but until I clicked on the name of the shelf. I also had to find books one at a time by book title. In order to rate a book, I had to click on the advanced shelf and it also offered a window to write a book review. I really like the appearance of the page. It’s very pleasing and appealing to the eye. Over all it was simple to use, but time consuming.

Biblionasium

The Biblionasium pages are very kid friendly and beautifully designed. I tried signing in as a teacher, but I couldn’t, as I don’t have a school email account, therefore I signed in as a parent. As a parent I was able to add my ten your old son. This allowed me to recommend books to my son’s account, perhaps when he signs in he could view my recommendations and get motivated to read the books I recommended. I like this option. Kids can create their own account too. I noticed that Biblionasium only allowed me to shelve my books in three shelving categories: I have it, it’s a favorite, and we own this book. I tried to add another shelving category, but I couldn’t figure it out, therefore I didn’t add another one and used those three categories only. I learned that I can only search for books ages 2-13. It allowed me to save a book for older readers, but I had to type in the name of the book and upload a book cover image from my computer files. I believe that elementary students (Pre-K – 6^th Grade) would benefit most from this site.

I believe Goodreads was the most user friendly out of the five online book communities I’ve explored. The other ones were simple too, but Goodreads was even easier to use. Although each one can serve the needs of different grade level students, Goodreads will serve the needs of my Middle School Students. I only have 45 minutes with each of my classes, therefore time is precious and Goodreads will definitely help with making the experience easier and less time consuming. I would need to make sure that my students have an Amazon account, so they can use it to upload titles straight from their accounts like I did.  Amazon allows the user to use the option, “pick-up my Amazon buys” and in a matter of seconds the books upload to the main shelf. I find this option easy and convenient. I also like Shelfari. I like the feature where the user may add a character description to help others that may be interested in reading that book. It also helps the students practice their characterization reading skills. These two sites offer the user to set reading goals (books per year), set recommendations, rate books, view recommendations from others, and allows user to select prefer genres. These are options that would most benefit my students to continue to practice their reading skills. It is challenging just choosing one, but I believe these two would meet the needs of my students.