Online Book Communities

There are multiple FREE online book communities available for your use.  These sites are great for keeping track of what you are reading, what you want to read, and what you have already read.  Another great feature is that most of the sites will also give suggestions of new books to read based on what you have added to your collections.  The sites are pretty user-friendly, though some are easier than other, of course.

Another important use of these sites is book reviews.  You have access to many reviews by other members. And, you can add your thoughts on books you read for others to read.  You can also follow other members if you want to keep up with their reviews.  There are groups for book discussions and more.

LibraryThing is full of possibilities, and I found it pretty simple to use.  Very useful, but not the most aesthetically pleasing.

I'm a little more familiar with Goodreads because I have used it as a resource at times.  As I worked with five different online book community sites today, I found Goodreads the easiest for me to use and navigate. It's still not the "prettiest" looking website, but a great site.  Lots of great features.

I also looked at Shelfari.  I thought this one was more difficult to figure out how to import books, but I eventually got it.  The import combined books to one cover if there was a print and ebook of the same title. So, you have to click on the cover and then go to editions to see what is available.  Goodreads and LibraryThing kept them separate.  I also did not find a way to "reshelve" the books all at once.  I had to move them one-by-one to the "I plan to read" shelf, and I did not find an option for adding a custom-named shelf. The did think the website was nice to look at, rather clean and organized.

Booklikes is also clean and organized in appearance.  I had a hard time at first figuring out how to import books, but the FAQ's had great information.  It was easy to sync my Goodreads information to Booklikes. That was nice.

And finally, I checked out Biblionasium.  This one is kid-friendly and would be great for elementary classroom teachers. The kids will like the bright images and easy to use format.  This is also set up for parents to access.  I did not find a way to import books, so I had to add each book one-by-one.  And,  I was not able to add a custom-named shelf.

After looking at the different sites, I decided I will keep Goodreads.  It felt like it had the best features and most information available, and it was the easiest one for me to use.  User-friendly!