Thing #35: Books 2.0

Oh the places you'll go! Books are so awesome and to be able to share online and have reading communities is even awesom-er! (Yes, I know it's not a word. But it's fun. Get over the grammar thing.) Anyways, a Thing like this tends to scare me because it could turn into a big ugly green monster that takes over my life and becomes my next obsession. But I'll try to restrain myself.


Not doing so great at the restraining part just now because I went through all the links under organizing your personal library. I already use Shelfari and have used Library Thing, but not a ton. Shelfari has had a lot of technical difficulties of late, so is no longer my favorite. I was kind of interested to see what else was out there. I like BookJetty. Signed up. I think I might use it for my adult reading and keep my kids reading on Shelfari. Some of the others just didn't look like what I wanted. It's weird how design really affects your choices. I thought ITrackMine looked like NetFlix. The red turned me off. Guess I'm a blue kind of person. Or, well... I'd really prefer green, but you don't find that often.


I signed up for DailyLit. I'm not so interested in getting books on my phone. I can get ebooks from my library through Mobipocket. And I already have a palmreader on the phone, but I haven't used it. For some reason, the allure of mobile reading goes along with my wanting to read the classics. I don't have time for the classics right now. I wish I did. I just don't. So, I find myself trying to put classics on my mobile devices. It's stupid. But that's what I keep doing.

The next section of links was on readers' advisory, which I love. There were some links that seem like the ones we use already for patrons. I like the idea of BookStumpers. I signed up for BookLamp, but it hasn't sent me the confirmation e-mail yet. Hmmm... Wonder which one I put in?

This is turning out to be a really long entry. Just a little more right? I looked at the online book communities. The BookGlutton one looked pretty cool, until I registered. Then I got confused. I didn't see any books that looked interesting. Then I saw the one that's done by Target and thought, "No way! Target?" So, I checked it out, and it's pretty darn cool! Now I just have to find some people to read with me. Long distance book clubs, anyone? All my non-work friends aren't readers like me. I'll recruit someone, eventually...

Let's see, what's next? I guess I'm going to gloss over the next two categories a little bit. The book group resources looks like more of the same. And we have digital audiobooks you can check out through our local library. I use this a lot and download books to my MP3 player and then don't listen to them because I don't have time. You know, the same reason that I always, always, always have late fees on my library card. :)

I like the idea of the Book Swap sites. I've actually heard about BookCrossing a lot over the years. I've never done it, though I think it would be interesting. Generally when I'm trying to get rid of my books, I'm not looking for more. I'm actually trying to weed. And then I just give to the library because our Friends group will sell them off and give the profits back to the library.

Reviews links were okay. I liked the one-minute critic, but it's just a cool blog site. Might be a neat idea for a tween blog at our library. BookBrowse looked really familiar, like maybe I browsed it once upon a time. :) And then I got to the section on Children's Books. Oh dear. I'm going to have to stop and take some time for this. I'm gonna go ahead and post this and just do a Part 2 post later.