Looking for book recommendations? We'll we've got a bunch for you. You may already know about the Librarians' Bookshelf, which is an eNewsletter we send out monthly either via e-mail or RSS. This eNewsletter typically has less than 25 recommendations on it each month, but we are now putting the books that appear on the Librarians' Bookshelf eNewsletter (our staff picks) into a larger list of 200 recommendations that is viewable on LibraryThing.
What is LibraryThing? LibraryThing is a social networking site where people can sign-up for a free account and create their own catalog of up to 200 books. They can join online book groups to take part in discussions with other book lovers all around the world. In fact, we've just created a group too! It's called "Brigham City Reads" and it's just getting started. We'd love to make it a place where you can get online to share books you loved with others in the community. I'm hoping that it will come in handy for each of us when we just don't know what to read next. You may get to know other group members by their screen names and find that you like a lot of the books they do. Or maybe something someone says about a book or an author will make you want to give a new book a try.
A LibraryThing group is a great place to talk about books or things that have an obvious association to a book. It's a great way to have an informal chat about the books you're reading or one you're considering. I sometimes finish a book and wonder if other readers came away from it feeling the same as I did. What a great opportunity to try to find out! And you can be as anonymous as you choose. You can use your real name or make your user name something that few, if any, will recognize as you.
Very few rules apply. In the discussion rooms you can say whatever you like, as long as you're nice and don't say offensive things. If you say inappropriate things, other users may flag you, and when enough do, LibraryThing may remove your comment. The library has formed the online group, but individual users are responsible for their own statements.
We've also got a link to the library's LibraryThing 'library'. On the side bar of our blog you'll see some book covers (from our LibraryThing 'library') and right above them you'll see a hyper link called "My Library" that will take you into the complete list of 200 recommendations from our staff. Or you can just click on the "Thingamabrarian" icon to get to the our 'library' as well. As we get new lists of recommendations we'll delete some of the old ones so the list will remain updated.
I signed up for an account of my own not too long ago and have joined a few groups. It's been kind of fun. Sign-up for an account and you can connect with authors, put a widget on your own blog that shows books from your library, and discuss books with other readers. Some of the authors on LibraryThing include: Susan Wittig Albert, Joe Hill, and Sherryl Woods. There are groups to discuss certain author's works as well as certain genre's (i.e. mysteries, thrillers, romance, fantasy, sci-fi). Why not sign-up and see what's there for you, after all, it is free!
If you love books and love sharing them with others or just talking about them, come and join the group now!
Elizabeth
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