Shelfari is one of several sites that caters to people who are avid readers and want to keep a public record of what books they have read. It's a fascinating blend of the offline and the online, as it also becomes an online community for people to talk about the books they have read and love (or hate) with others.
This is one of those moments when I think about ten years ago, how we were lucky to be in a book club with five other people who had read the same book as us, how finding someone else who had read a lot of the same books as you was a rare joy, and how much sites like Shelfari have opened up conversation for avid book readers. If you're an avid reader, I recommend it as a place to spend some time.
Here are three key elements.
1. Create a bookshelf: The core feature of Shelfari is that you are on a "shelf safari," navigating your way through the great landscape of books around the world, seeking out the hidden gems wherever they are, and bringing them back home, displaying them on your own digital bookshelf on Shelfari. The main activity on Shelfari is just that: listing the books you have read on their beautiful interface.
2. Amazon integration: Amazon purchased Shelfari in 2008 and it has resulted in some specific advantages over other competitors like GoodReads and LibraryThing. The biggest is that you can import your Amazon purchases into Shelfari and seamlessly add them to your bookshelf.
3. Crowdsourcing extras: Shelfari is keen to ask users to add what they call "extra" information about books. This would be things like plot summaries, quotes, character descriptions, and other extras. The extras then also are available through Kindle reading apps. The part I find interesting here is that it's a key component to ask for this information from the crowd. I think it adds a great dimension of adding information for the benefit of other readers.
Are any of you on Shelfari? What do you think?
Image courtesy of screenshot via Shelfari.com
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