Goodreads through an academic lens

I have two friends! Wait - three, and a fourth is pending! I can really see the lure of this social tool. I have been very distracted this week by emails from Goodreads that pop up in my gmail account, like:

 and

and

It is a lot of fun to check out my friends' shelves, to add their chosen titles to either my "read" list or some to my "to read" list, to gasp in shock at their ratings, or to nod in agreement. One of my Goodreads friends is currently reading Twilight, and she has shared some hysterical insights into the book that I had not thought about.

"Edward is an admittedly supernaturally handsome man, so that would explain the initial attraction and perhaps some of the later attraction. I also get that vampires seem to have some persuasive mojo going on. I am not sure, however, that that would override the fact that Edward is a jerk and Bella seems to be trapped in this strange abusive relationship"(McMartin, 2011).

I raced through the entire series two summers ago. I lost a week of my life that I have never regretted, but it wasn't until I got on Goodreads and learned what some other members had to say about the series that I had this thought: I am not sure I can wholeheartedly recommend the series now. I will have to temper my enthusiasm, having read about Edward and Bella from so many different perspectives. I will still recommend this series to my female students, but I will now add a little caveat about the reality of some of the content matter. There is nothing wrong with getting lost in a romantic novel, but there is something wrong about ignoring the secondary, and possibly harmful, messages.

Wait, now I am essentially self-censoring the school library collection. I can't do that! But if I recommend based on my opinion, without being aware of other perspectives of the novel, then I am censoring due to bias and deliberate ignorance.

This is making me rethink the whole idea of the teacher-librarian as a reader's advisor. I have just learned the boldfaced term after reading Stover's (2009) article, "Stalking the Wild Appeal Factor", in which the author explores three "book-centered social networking sites", LibraryThing, Shelfari, and Goodreads (p. 244). Stover (2009) explains:

Readers' advisory (RA) is one of the most social services librarians offer. It's no surprise that talking about books so easily made the leap to the Internet. This discussion is a natural extension of the readers' advisory conversation" (p. 244).

She goes on to describe book-centered sites as being a combination of the "the in-person RA interview" and the "in-depth questioning through reader profile forms", in that "online readers are using all the descriptors available to express what they like about what they have been reading or what they want to read. They are in a relaxed environment, they are taking their time, they are enjoying looking for the right words, or even using creative terms to describe what they like" (p. 244). She even refers to a new taxonomy, or classification system, on these sites called a "feeling taxonomy" (p. 244). This reference to taxonomy connects to Richardson (2010) when he explains the tagging system Diigo uses; he describes how a new classification system has evolved on social bookmarking sites which he calls "folksonomy" (p. 91). Essentially, "the idea is in working with your community of researchers, new tagging systems will emerge and become accepted that will allow us all to participate in the process" (Richardson, 2010, p. 91). I think this idea can be applied to members in sites such as LibraryThing, Shelfari, and Goodreads, and I think Stover (2009) would agree, as she states "The shared language of readers' advisors and readers is changing and expanding when put to use on the Internet" (p. 244).

While working through all of this information about book-centered social networking sites, I do not want to lose sight of this fact explaining the necessity of being present on at least one of these tools:

"Not only are library staff reaching new and different patrons, but they are improving their own knowledge of books read, heard of, and glanced at, and it is all in one place" (Stover, 2009, p. 244).

Being a reader's advisor is a much bigger responsibility than I thought. . .

Goodreads, launched in December of 2006, was the third book-related social networking site to come online, after LibraryThing launched in August 2005, and Shelfari launched October 2006 (Stover, 2009, p. 245). Stover says LibraryThing "is moving into the business of library catalog enhancement with its LibraryThing for Libraries service" (p. 244). I have just signed up for a one hour Webinar on this service, hosted by Cisco WebEx on Tuesday, November 22nd. Best to learn all I can about these different tools before choosing one for my school library.

A quick email to my VISLA Google Group (Vancouver Independent School Librarians Association) , which is an exciting addition to my expanding PLN, elicited a few responses, all of which have just added to my dilemma about which tool to align with. Perhaps I will do as Stover (2009) suggests, in this piece of excellent Web 2.0 advice:

"Try out all of the Web toys out there. It's the responsibility of a good readers' advisor to at least be familiar with the numerous Internet playthings. But once they've all been taken for a test run, commit to one and politely show the others the door. It will be enough of a time commitment to keep one account current on a reading network, and it will be very important to keep that account up to date" (p. 246).

References
McMartin, P. (2011, November 18). Re: Pmcmartin is currently reading: [Online forum comment]. Retrieved from www.goodreads.com/user/show/6962786-pmcmartin
Richardson, W. . (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Stover, K. (2009). Stalking the wild appeal factor. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 48(3), 243-246.