I will say that I was unable to do much with Biblionasium, because I do not currently have my own classroom. That site is very classroom focused it appears. It seems like an awesome tool to track your students reading and I cannot wait to try it out with one of my classes in the near future.
As for the other 4 sites, they all had their advantages and disadvantages. I will share about each one individually, starting with Goodreads. What I like most about Goodreads is that it is a great social networking site. This site makes it very easy to connect with people, especially people who share similar interests with you. I also like that you can rate your books, update the dates that you read them, and even update what page you are on if you are currently reading a book. One of the greatest things about this site is that it recommends books for you. If you click on a book that you love, on the right side of the page it is going to give you a list of books that other people who also loved that book have enjoyed reading. This keeps you from wondering aimlessly in search for books without knowing whether or not it might interest you. As far as ease of use, Goodreads is fairly easy. It is by far the easiest of the sites to add bookshelves to! The only thing about this site, is that I think it looks very crowded. For some users, this may come across as overwhelming, unorganized, or even difficult to use. Especially for students, the cleaner and easier to navigate, the better! Here are some screenshots of some of the key elements of Goodreads:
LibraryThing was another site that I tried out. It was easily the most unattractive of the sites. The format of the site, similar to Goodreads, is very busy and can come across as overwhelming. There are some things that I like about LibraryThing though. It is fairly easy to add a shelf to the site. I like that you can rate the books that you read, and that it also shows you how many other people have that book on their shelf and how many people have reviewed the book. One cool thing that LibraryThing does is recommend you to other users that share the same reading interests as you. This is a great way to connect with people with like interests. Another thing I like is that on the left side of the page you can click "Recommendations" and the site pulls up a lot of books that you may be interested in. I believe these are chosen based on the titles and authors of the books that you have already collected. Below are some screenshots from LibraryThing"
Another book community that I looked into was called Shelfari. It was not my absolute favorite, but I did like this site quite a bit. One thing that I really liked about that site was the "Hide All Spoilers" badge. You can click this box, and everything that might give away main parts of the story are taken away. This makes it easier to see what books you might want to read, without finding out the ending first, or anything that might ruin the book for you. This site also allows you to rate each book that you read, and it tells you how many readers have also read that book and reviewed it. Although the features of this site are great, the attractiveness is what hinders me from using it regularly. It does not have a very crisp clean-cut look to me, and it is fairly hard to navigate. I never could figure out how to create a new bookshelf on this site. Here are a couple of screen shots:
My favorite of all of the book community sites that we looked at is called BookLikes. It is the most attractive by far. I believe that this site would be the easiest for students to use in the classroom, because it is easy to navigate, offers a clean and clear presentation, and is the most attractive. Adding a shelf in BookLikes was super easy. You just have to click on "Shelf" and "Add a Shelf" and put in the required information. Very easy! I really enjoy how this site looks. I love the skinny little bookshelves that the books sit on and the large icons for the book images. Another thing that I really love about this site is the features included when reviewing a book. You can put the book on any of your shelves, mark when you started and when you completed a book, rate them based on a 5 star system, add comments, etc. It is easy to do but also gives lots of options. I think that without a doubt this would be the online book community that I would use and recommend for my students. Below are some screen shots:
Now for the hard part...getting my account all up to date with my books and really using this site to it's full advantage. I am excited to get started and see what all else it has to offer that I didn't play with yet!
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