Online Book Communities

     Reading is one of my favorite things to do, but after I am done with a  book, I like to discuss it right away.  Sometimes this is a difficult thing to do since not many people around me share the same taste in books or simply do not like to read.  Luckily, there are many online communities where you can discuss whatever book you are reading at the time.  You can rate your books and leave reviews.  Goodreads, LibraryThing, Shelfari, and Booklikes are just a few of the online communities that you can find out there.

Goodreads
     Goodreads is a sight for people to go and post the books they have read and discuss them with other members of Goodreads.  You are able to see a newsfeed with the postings of the people you are following and follow what they have read or want to read.  In order to have a virtual shelf, you must add the books you have read or want to read.  You simply do a search for the book you want, and then, you are prompted to add book and choose what category you want it filed under.  I think a cool feature of Goodreads is that with the compilation of your favorite book and books you want to read in the future, you are given a list of several books that might interest you.  With Goodreads, you are able to follow and join groups.  You can also create your own group and have people follow you.  Goodreads also connects with Facebook, so you are able to add your friends to your "following" list.  This site also has a few widgets you can include in your blog. 
     Below is a screenshot of how my Goodreads profile looks like. If you want to add anything to your blog from Goodreads, it is set up to support Blogger.  Signing-up for Goodreads was not difficult.  The only problem I encountered was that some of the things to do are kind of hard to find, for example the widgets.

Maria's bookshelf: favorites

Pride and Prejudice

by Jane Austen

Jane Eyre

by Charlotte Brontë

The Hobbit

by J.R.R. Tolkien

Divergent

by Veronica Roth

The Hunger Games

by Suzanne Collins

BookLikes

     Another online book community is BookLikes.  It is similar to Goodreads.  You are able to easily search for a book and add it to your list.  BookLikes also has groups that you can join and become part of their book discussions.  When you first enter and are on the dashboard, it looks very similar to Tumblr, so it feels familiar.  It has a newsfeed where you are able to see what you have posted and what other people you are connected with have posted.  In order to go to the blog page, you have to click on my profile picture, and it will take you directly there.  I had a bit of a difficult time trying to figure that out.  I think one of the best features of BookLikes was the blog section.  I can see students discussing books that they have read and sharing with the class online, of course.    You are able to connect this community with Facebook and Twitter and have your postings sent to those sites.  I think the design of BookLikes would attract students since there is lots of colors and limited white space.  Also, the letters are mostly large and does not look like if there is a lot going on in a small space.  The only thing that I did not like from BookLikes was that I have many people that I am following when I did not choose anyone.  They do have an "explore" section, but I would rather choose who I am following.  As you can see below, I am following 25 people and none were my choice.  Since I am working with students in an online situation, that makes me cautious.

 

LibraryThing        The first thing that I notice with LibraryThing is the amount of letters in one space.  I think that a middle school student would be overwhelmed at first when seeing all the letters they would have to read.  As with Goodreads and BookLikes, adding books is easy.  You just choose "add books" tab and do a search for the particular book you are looking for.  When you see all your books in one place, they do show you the book covers as in the book communities mentioned, but it is not as appealing.  

        LibraryThing does have its positives. When you do an author search, you will be presented with a lot of information from about the author.  I saw that they added a bit more than a simple bibliography.  They mentioned religion, relatives, and even their agents.  I was able to get my profile going, but I had difficulty getting things done.  For example, I wanted to add my favorite authors.  I was given instructions how to do add the author, but I would get stuck on the authors page and could not get them added.  As I scrolled almost all the way down, I found a very small button that said add to favorites.  Now, I can easily find it, but I think my students would have a difficult time trying to add an author.  Another positive about LibraryThing is the Local tab they offer.  When you click on that, you are given links to libraries and bookstores near you, and it post their current activities. As an adult, I could get lost in all the information LibraryThing offers, but I think that a middle school student with a short attention span would find this online community a bit daunting.  

 

Shelfari        Shelfari is another online book community.  I find this site in between Goodreads and BookLikes.  With Safari, you are also able to find groups that you can join and be up-to-date on what interests you.  You can also find friends to follow from Facebook, Twitter, GMail, Yahoo, and many more.  This site offers more options in this field.  In Shelfari, you are able to look for books according to subject, series and even popularity.  It offers many, many recommendations.  I was not able to find a personal blog page like the one BookLikes has, but it does provide a community blog.  Here you can find post made by Shelfari on the most recent happenings in the book world.  I found useful information here.       Shelfari does offer an author's page, but it is not as thorough as LibraryThings.  It has a bibliography and does provide all the books created by the author you are searching for.  I also like how Shelfari presents the books in my collection.  It puts covers of all your books with your ratings on a shelf, so you can view them easily, and you are able to scroll to the sides to see all you collection.  

     One of the cool features of Shelfari is that I did not need to go through the sign up process to create my own Shelfari.  I just signed up with Amazon.  With Shelfari, you can create a nice looking shelf widget to put on your webpage.  You have a choice of which category of books you want to show off.  I also like that you are given a option where you can set a goal for yourself on how many books you will read throughout the year.

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

     Overall, I think all for online communities have a lot to offer, but I would most likely use BookLikes in my classroom.  I think it is pleasing to the young eye.  The students will be able to create their list easily.  What I liked the most is the personal blog it has available for the user to create.  I could have students create a blog for books that I assigned to them or those they read on their own.  I think they would enjoy themselves creating the blog and choosing the different themes.

 “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood