CiteULike: Wow! This was the first time I visited CiteULike, and I was amazed at how much information can be found here. I searched the term “social media and teens” and came up with over 800 articles. Personally, that is a bit overwhelming. I did like how easy it is to select a source from the list, read the abstract and most importantly, be able to click on where I can get the article/book/etc.
LibraryThing: I can see myself using this site. Personally, I think it would be fun to keep track of all the books I’ve read. I also think this would be a very useful tool as a librarian. It could come in handy when conducting a reader’s advisory. I also like that you can get in on a book talk or topic talk. Having a virtual area to participate in a book group is appealing to me since it can be done from your own home. Of course, face to face interaction is great, but when it’s hard to find time to attend a formal book group, this could be a great alternative.
Shelfari: This site is very similar to LibraryThing, although LibraryThing seems to have a few more bells and whistles than Shelfari. I say this cautiously since I am new to both. Like LibraryThing, Shelfari offers the user the ability to keep track of their own personal reading and library, access others’ libraries and participate in reading groups. Shelfari seems a bit simpler than LibraryThing as it focuses on four primary areas—books/authors, members, groups and discussions. I was surprised when I first joined Shelfari because when I was creating an account it prompted me for my Amazon login and password. Obviously, Shelfari is part of Amazon. It also allows you to access your amazon history so that you can add the books you bought directly to your shelf. When adding a book to your shelf, you are brought through a step by step process which is very easy to follow. At this point you enter in basic information about the book, write a brief review, add tags for the book (either tags created by the user or tags selected from a list provided for the particular book), join book groups, etc. Finally, the site is visually attractive with its setup and design!
Of these three I am most familiar with Library Thing and Shelfari. As some of our classmates have noted both of these have be fun to keep track of personal reading however the idea of loading all of the books that one has read can feel almost dizzying! It's funny, I really had not though about the tagging process involved in either of these products before now.
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