Thing 19: Social Reading & Book Stuff

It made sense that this lesson started with Goodreads; it has been my number one resource for cataloging my books and reading book reviews for years.  I started out with Library Thing for cataloging my books, but gravitated to Goodreads, which seemed more user-friendly (particularly for mobile devices.  Anyway, when I read about the Goodreads widget, I was happy to add it to this blog and I plan to add it to my school library webpage too.  I have showed my students this site numerous times, especially when they want to know what book comes next in a series; all they need to do is find the author profile and scroll down to the books written by him or her.  I check reviews for numerous reasons, but I really love it for perspective - seeing both the positive and negative comments helps me moderate discussions in both adult and teen book clubs. There are so many different ways to interpret a story and share other related information (similar books, movies, authors, places, historical events, etc.).  Goodreads is bookmarked on my laptop, and desktop; I also use the Goodreads app on my iPhone.

Libary Reads was a new site to me and I have bookmarked it into my "Book Reviews" folder with the intention of checking it for new titles.  The top ten titles looked really interesting and in the future, I would love to contribute to this social recommendation site.  Now I just need more time to read!

I have opened an account with Net Galley for advance reading of new titles, but I have an issue with the fact that I have 2 kindle accounts and I am trying to correct that with Amazon.  Net Galley needs the address of the device(s) I plan to use.  I hope to talk with them again tomorrow when my little-used kindle is fully charged.  I use the kindle app most of the time on my smartphone or my iPad and apparently I inadvertently opened a second account.  It will be good to get this straightened out!  To be honest, I really prefer paper books, but I know how important it is to stay on top of current technology and use eBooks too.  The Book Bub was a great resource for discounted eBooks and after signing up for an account, I receive daily emails with the really good pricing deals - this will encourage me to get back into the eBooks!

I have an Overdrive account, but I've used it mostly to get audio books onto my phone ('love audio!).  Downloading books is easy, but I tend to forget about them and they expire before I finish them.  If I could renew the eBooks, I may be more likely to borrow them.  For now, borrowing eBooks just doesn't work for me.  I do recommend them to others though.

I started a new folder in my bookmarks for Spartan Guides, which was so fully loaded with useful library information, that it will take me some time to sort out the things that I can use.  Thanks for posting - love LibGuides!

Common Sense Media is a wonderful site, but it is geared towards parents, teachers and librarians that have children under 14 years of age.  As a high school librarian, the reviews and ratings on books and movies were pretty limited.  Still, I liked the variety of "best of" lists for titles.  I did use this site when I worked with younger students and the app worked really well (although it does take up a lot of storage space on your phone).