Online Book Communities... Finally a Place to Call Home

Online Book Communities (OBCs) are sites designed to allow the users to chronicle their literary lives.  OBCs offer a variety of features to meet the endless desires of the true bibliophile.  To be honest, I was a little underwhelmed at the thought of "cataloging"  books that I have read.  However, once I really got started it was hard to stop.  All of the OBC sites I visited allow users to "shelve" their books.  "Read", "Wishlist", & "Currently reading" are all common shelf titles.  Most allow the user to customize their shelves to meet thier particular needs and personalities.

I plan to use OBCs both professionally and personally.  Professionally and personally I plan to:

*  keep  a record of books I would like to read

* maintain a record of books I have already read

* keep abreast of new titles and reviews for those titles

Professionally, I see endless possibilities. Here are just a couple of my ideas for classroom use:

  * students will write reviews of books they have already read.

  * students will make suggestions for each other

I set up accounts with a few of the more popular OBCs:

Goodreads

Goodreads is by far the OBC that I heard the most about.  It is very popular.  

I found this site to be similar to Facebook.  An account holder can friend and be friended by other users.  Users can give "status" updates about books they are currently reading.  

For classroom use, I think that students would be able to adapt and use this site without any problems.  Personally, I found this site to be easy to use, but it did not appeal to me personally.  The appearance is rather generic.  

Booklikes

Signing up for a Booklikes is pretty easy you can use your Facebook account.  In appearance the dashboard page reminds me of Tumblr.  Users can "like" posts---repost the comments of others.

The shelf is pretty standard for OBCs.  Unlike, some other OBCs  there is a section where you can set up your own book blog.  I personally, like this one the best for me.  As for student preference, I think the more advanced students would be able to navigate a create their own space.  

Shelfari

Shelfari is rather easy to sign up for.  If you have any Amazon account, then it is a breeze.  You will just use your Amazon account information.  Otherwise, the features are pretty standard to what I have seen in other OBCs.  One nice feature is the ability to add to your contacts (friends) is to use your Google email lists.  It was fairly easy to add books to the shelves.  All of the students, in my district have district issued GMail accounts.  This would make it easy for teachers to use and for students to make contacts.

Librarything

I really did not find this OBC appealing.  Asethically is very uninviting.  I also found that adding books to the shelves was not as easy as the other sites.  I know that my students would definitely be reluctant to use this site--there are just too many links and words on the page.  In fact I think that they would (especially my ELLs) find it intimating.