Since I’m continuing this online class quite a while after
the initial offering, there are some methods I have since discovered on my own.
This is the case for learning about social reading sites.
Goodreads is one of the several profiled allowing you to add
books you have read, are currently reading, or wish to read and to compare your
list with others in the community, both friends and strangers. Recently, I
connected my Goodreads profile to another social media, Facebook. Since I often
find Facebook rather vacuous, I recently added some Facebook friends to
Goodreads and also linked my Goodreads account to Facebook so my reading updates
appear. When I re-read an old favorite book, an out-of-state Facebook friend
commented that my choice looked interesting and she had ordered a copy!
Three videos from Library Thing for Libraries really got my
attention. One showed how the site help libraries create a “Library Anywhere”
presence on mobile devices. Another explained how libraries can use statistics
from that to track patron usage. Another described patrons using
phone apps to scan a book’s bar code, get a match, and then locate it
at a local library.
As rapidly as technology advances and connects, the more
tools libraries have to reach their patrons. Social reading sites are great
tools.