I never enter another person's living space without checking out their bookshelves. Leave the medicine cabinets to the amateurs, nothing tells you more about a person than the books they have on their shelves. Shelfari (LibraryThing's prettier cousin) lets you examine the virtual shelves of its members. The books are displayed cover-front on a shelf, and there are multiple ways you can browse. If you just feel like taking a peek at what other people are reading you can just browse the covers. If something interests you, you can click on and get a brief desctiption, ratings, links to other people who have this book on their shelves, groups using the book and a link directing you to amazon for purchase. It's all right there on one easy to navigate page. All of your browsing needs are fulfilled in just a few clicks. If you're a joiner, there are plenty of groups to join, with something to appeal to just about everyone (the Harry Potter group scares me a little, personally).
You can simply be a voyeur, checking out everyone else's shelves or start to build your own shelves, which includes categories such as read, reading, planning to read, and wish list. The site can easily be used to track your own reading habits (but remember, others can see you too!) and beats the old pen and paper method any day. Over time, it may be able to tell you more about yourself than a shrink, a psychic and your mother combined--and it's cheaper, won't judge you, and is more fun to use!
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3 comments:
I am a LibraryThing user, but your post picqued my interest when you referred to Shelfari as "LibraryThing's prettier cousin."
That comment alone is going to get me to look at Shelfari. But, I also like the idea of being able to track one's reading habits.
Maybe LibraryThing has such a feature, but with all the excitement of Social Software, I haven't had the time to add books to LT, or investigated its new features lately. I will certainly be comparing it to Shelfari, though, the next time I add books.
I could not agree more about being curious about what people have on their bookshelves, and believing that those volumes can tell....well...volumes.
What's kind of interesting about librarything (or any of its brethren) is that it's backwards -- instead of being invited into a house, ostensibly knowing (or at least meeting) the person first, the initial contact is the library, even just a single title. Sort of amusing to imagine selecting a random title off my real (vs. virtual) shelves without context; what's as interesting to me about personal libraries as the books themselves is the connection between them.
Anyway - loved your post.
You definitely have a way with words! After reading your post, I would definitely go back and look more closely at Shelfari. Not only does it beat the old pen and paper method, it beats trying to make an Excel spreadsheet. Good reminder that others can see you. It's too easy to forget that.
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