DIY Professional Development for Lifelong Learners Like You – Part 3: Online Reading Communities
Here are some online reading communities that can feed your reading life:
Nerdy Book Club: Are you looking for a network of librarians, teachers, authors, reviewers and parents who share your unabashed joy for reading? Look no further than the Nerdy Book Club, a new blog that invites readers to write blog posts and reviews. The major beliefs of the Nerdy Book Club are:
If you read, you are already a member of the club.
Every reader has value and a voice in the community.
Skim the extensive blog roll for the best reviews and commentary about reading and books.
(Twitter hashtag: #nerdybookclub)
Titletalk: Titletalk is a monthly Twitter chat that takes place on the last Sunday of every month at 8 pm EST. Each monthly discussion explores one reading topic like reading alouds, picture books, or launching a year of reading. The first half of Titletalk involves a conversation about instructional practices, resources, and ideas for working with young readers. The second half of the chat is a flood of suggested books from participants that relate to the chat topic. The Titletalk wiki houses archives of every chat, so you can access the information when you cannot attend.
**Because the last Sunday of December this year is Christmas Day, this month’s Titletalk will take place on Sunday, December 18th.
For tips on how to participate in a Twitter chat, check out Colby Sharp’s tutorial at the Sharpread blog.
(Twitter hashtag: #titletalk)
The Centurions: At the end of each month, almost 800 Facebook users converge on the Centurions page to share the books they have read over the past month. Centurions challenged themselves to read 111 books in 2011, but the page provides an excellent source of book recommendations even if you don’t reach this goal. Growing beyond the monthly tallies, Centurions post book suggestions, opinions, and questions all month long. Add Centurions to your New Year’s resolution list and join the new challenge in 2012.
LibraryThing: LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere—even on your mobile phone. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth.
LibraryThing is a full-powered cataloging application, searching the Library of Congress, all five national Amazon sites, and more than 690 world libraries. You can edit your information, search and sort it, “tag” books with your own subjects, or use the Library of Congress and Dewey systems to organize your collection.
If you want it, LibraryThing is also an amazing social space, often described as “MySpace for books” or “Facebook for books.” You can check out other people’s libraries, see who has the most similar library to yours, swap reading suggestions and so forth. LibraryThing also makes book recommendations based on the collective intelligence of the other libraries.
Shelfari: Shelfari is a community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers. Create a virtual bookshelf, discover new books, connect with friends and learn more about your favorite books – all for free. (Owned by Amazon. I’ve read a few comments saying that Shelfari sends them a lot of spam)
goodreads: A social networking site for readers, I consider goodreads my reading brain. I would never be able to track or categorize the books I read without my goodreads shelves and my goodreads friends provide an endless source of recommendations and reviews that inform my reading plans. You can also follow authors’ reviews and blogs, enter giveaways and contests, or create book discussion groups. (I’ve read some comments that Good Reads is also a source of spam).
Source: The Book Whisperer