Good Reads

On to Good Reads...the link to my account is on the previous post.

I looked around Shelfari and Library Thing, and both looked excellent;  I like Good Reads in particular though because it's not connected to a store (like Amazon with Shelfari); and though the cataloging feature in Library Thing is excellent, I don't feel I need it for my current job, I don't think the students would use this feature (see my explanation of Destiny and Destiny Quest in the next paragraph), and I don't want to have to pay a fee if I add more than 200 books.

I have had a Good Reads account set up for many years but I have actually never used it to post books I've read. I use it to look at what other people have read and their book opinions, because I love good book recommendations. For this week we were required to enter at least five books, and that was my plan out the outset. But...once I started adding books I had a hard time stopping! First of all, though slow, the site is very easy to use. You simply press the button that describes what you'd like to do: enter a book, rate a book, leave a comment, organize your shelves, etc. Secondly, for a visual, organized person like me, seeing the list with the accompanying book cover icons is enormously satisfying; it's like I get to tidily revisit all the things I've read recently. I can absolutely see why a librarian would want to use this in connection with her library/collection. At our school however we use the Destiny catalog,which has the Destiny Quest feature - which functions very similarly to Good Reads, and has the safety advantage of only being accessible to members of our school community. Users can "shelve" the books they've read, categorize, and rate them, and send each other messages. Since we're already paying for Destiny this is a useful social networking feature to get students exciting about reading. Good Reads connects users to other readers anywhere, not just in a school, which is particularly helpful when trying to connect with colleagues and get feedback about prospective books for the collection.

Next, the tool that perplexed me the most this week: RSS feeds.