Track 19: Social Reading & Book Stuff

I am a big reader (shocker, right J) and I find that I read so much sometimes I can’t remember what I read or if I liked the book and if it was something I could recommend to someone else. I also found that I would be in the store browsing through book shelves and writing down books I would want to read only to not be able to find the paper where I wrote the titles down. I would also always get recommendations from people about books I should I read and would always forget them. I decided that I need to find a way to keep all of the books that I read, and wanted to read organized and that is when I signed up for Shelfari.

I used Shelfari for a year or two and found that it was easy enough to use but I was not that happy with what it had to offer. I did not want to get rid of my Shelfari account so I decided that I would use it to showcase the new books that we had in the library. I changed the name and a few things to reflect that it was now a school account and once I had all the new books loaded into it I put it on website. It was a great way for the students to see the new books and the covers and be able to choose what book they might want to read.

I knew I was going to have to find something to use to organize my reading and that is when I found Goodreads, and I have been a user and lover of that ever since! Goodreads has allowed me to not only organize what I read, and what I want to read but it also allows me to read reviews and will give me suggestions about what books I should read next. I really like the layout of it and like how it is so easy to use. There are a lot of options as far as how you want the book lists organized and you can make it custom to how you want it. There is an option to connect it to Facebook but I chose to not do that because it is something that I use for myself and not for the rest of the world to see.

Overdrive is something that is somewhat new to me and now that I know it exists I have no idea how I lived without it! I was never originally a fan of the kindle because I thought that there was something special about holding a book but once I gave in and bought a kindle I could not be happier with the decision I made. It is the best thing to have especially if I am going away somewhere because I now do not have to pack my suitcase with multiple books. Overdrive has made it so easy to borrow books for free and there are so many titles available through my local library that I rarely have to buy a book anymore. Overdrive is organized and extremely easy to use and I love that I can customize certain things like how many days I can borrow the book for. I have helped more students than I can count in my building borrow books from Overdrive and I am working on getting some kindles for the library.