Thing #29: Book-Based Social Networks

In the past, Nebraska Learns 2.0 participants have explored LibraryThing (Thing #12) and WorldCat.org (Thing #26).

LibraryThing, which describes itself as “an online service to help people catalog their books easily,” offers members many opportunities for socializing and sharing book-related information with other members. It is considered by many to be the granddaddy of all social book sites.

WorldCat.org, the public interface to OCLC’s famous union catalog, has also recently been enhanced with social networking functionality. While the social features of WorldCat.org aren’t nearly as developed as those in LibraryThing, their addition to the service signals an understanding by OCLC developers of the public’s growing demand for a participatory, social online experience.

One interesting similarity between LibraryThing and WorldCat.org is that they both started out as catalogs, but they have become (or or striving to become, in the case of WorldCat.org) social sites where book lovers congregate.

That leads us to this month’s Thing #29: Book-Based Social Networks. For this Thing we will focus on services that were designed from the ground up as social networking sites for book lovers. Your assignment will be to explore at least one of these book-based social networking sites in greater depth and then blog about it.

Here are a few popular book-based social networking sites that you might choose to explore for Thing #29:

• Visual Bookshelf -- Visual Bookshelf is a popular Facebook application that allows users to share what they are reading not only with other Visual Bookshelf users but also with Facebook friends. It boasts 684,661 monthly active users.
  
  Book lovers who want to access the functionality of Visual Bookshelf without going through Facebook can do so at LivingSocial: Books, by creating a separate Living Social account or signing in with Facebook Connect.
  
  So what can you do with Visual Bookshelf? You can:
  
  
  • Search for books by title, author, or ISBN
  
  
  • Add books to your collection with the status of “Already read,” “Want to read,” or “Reading now”
  
  
  • Rate and review books
  
  
  • Share your book lists, ratings, and reviews with Facebook friends who also use the Visual Bookshelf application
  
  
  • Display your visual bookshelf on your Facebook profile, so friends who don’t use the application can still see what you are reading.
  
  
  • Publish what you are reading to your Facebook Wall. (This is a particularly good way to start conversations with Facebook friends who have read the same book or are interested in reading it.)
  
  
  • Receive recommendations based on your reading history.
  
  
  • See which other Visual Bookshelf users have read a book, and then see what other books they’ve read.
  
  
• weRead – weRead is another book-based social networking service that is available not only as a stand-alone web site but also as a Facebook application (395,005 monthly active users). weRead includes many of the same functionalities as Visual Bookshelf, including the ability to:
  
  
  • Add books to a personal bookshelf
  
  
  • Apply a status of “Read it,” “Reading it,” or “Want to Read” to books
  
  
  • Rate and review books
  
  
  • View friends’ bookshelves
  
  
  • Get personalized book recommendations.
  
  Unique features of weRead include Author pages, book quizzes (including The Never Ending Book Quiz), the ability to create or join public or private book clubs, and to read free online books.


• Goodreads – Goodreads’ mission is “to improve the process of reading and learning throughout the world.” Like other book-based social networking sites, Goodreads provides users with the opportunity to share their reading tastes with not only “friends” but also other Goodreads users.
  
  Goodreads provides users with three default shelves to which they can add books – “Read,” “Currently-Reading,” and “To-Read.” Users can create additional, self-defined shelves to further categorize their collection.
  
  Goodreads doesn’t offer personalized “recommendations” the way some of the other social book sites do, but it does provide some unique ways to find books, including the ability to browse lists such as “Thickest Books Ever,” “Most Proactive Female Protagonist,” “Books That Should Be Made Into Movies,” and “Interesting and Readable Nonfiction.” Members can also browse books via categories such as “genre,” “popular shelves,” “popular bookclub books,” and “recent reviews.”
  
  Other notable features include a particularly active author community and many active Groups. Goodreads’ Groups page lists “recently active groups,” “recently popular groups,” “groups in [your city, state],” “new groups,” and “goodreads author groups.” It’s also possible to browse by group categories. Take a look at the Organizations -> Libraries groups subcategory to see how some libraries are using these groups! Groups can be public, restricted, private, or secret.
  
  Like weReads, Goodreads is also available as a Facebook application (90,455 monthly active users).


• Booksprouts – If you are particularly interested in finding an online social site to support a book club, check out Booksprouts, which claims it is “making book clubs and reading groups easy, online.” For more information about Booksprouts read their FAQs or watch one of their Demo Videos. One promising feature of Booksprouts is Book Choice, a process designed to help book clubs decide what to read next. Book Choice supports nominations and voting by club members.

Tip: Adding Applications to Facebook

Several of the services listed above are available as Facebook applications. If you already have a Facebook account, but aren’t sure how to add an application, here’s a brief overview of the process:

1. While logged in to your Facebook account, click on the “Applications” button that appears at the left end of the Chat Bar at the bottom of your screen.
2. Click on “Browse More Applications.”
3. If you know the name of the application you want to add, type its name (e.g., Visual Bookshelf) in the “Search Apps” box that appears at the top left corner of the “All Applications” page.
4. Select your application from the Search Results page.
5. Click on the blue “Go to Application” button on the left side of the application page.
6. Click on the blue “Allow” button to add the application to your Facebook account.
7. If you’d like, you can bookmark the application so it appears on your Applications menu. To do this:
   
   1. Click again on the “Applications” button that appears at the left end of the Chat Bar at the bottom of your screen.
   2. Select “Edit Applications.”
   3. Click on the “Edit Settings” link to the right of the application you want to bookmark.
   4. Click on the “Bookmark” tab.
   5. Click the box to the left of “Bookmark [application name]” to add a check to it.
   6. Your application should now appear as a bookmarked application on your Applications menu.

For additional help with applications see General Application Support in Facebook’s Help Center.

Assignment

After exploring at least one of the book-based social networks, write a blog post about your experience with the service.

Here are some blog prompts if you’re having trouble thinking of what to write about:

1. Did you find the site easy and intuitive to use?
2. Do you feel that services like these compete with or complement the programming offered by libraries? Do you see ways in which libraries could use these services to further their own mission?
3. If you completed Thing #26 (WorldCat.org) discuss the similarities and differences between WorldCat.org and the social book site you explored for this Thing.
4. In exploring the service you chose to explore, did you stumble on any new books you’d like to read?