Thoughts on LibraryThing and other literary social media
Yesterday I finally gave in and joined the book-lovers social media site LibraryThing. In a nutshell, this site lets you post information about the books you’re reading, rate them, write reviews, connect with others reading the same books, get recommendations, join groups and a whole lot more. View my LibraryThing profile to see the books I’ve already added to my library, and in the future, read my reviews, ratings and all that other good stuff.
So far I’ve only entered about 30 books into my profile – mostly ones I have recently read and/or really enjoyed. Over time you will be able to see my library expand so that, in the future, you can view all the books in my library.
One of the more interesting features of LibraryThing is the ability to see some statistics on what you’re reading. For example, you can see the number of different characters, number of series and places you have read about. It also tells you how obscure your reading is. And if any of the books in your library has won any awards, it will let you know that as well.
The future of social media in the literary world
I think we are going to see more and more social media edging its way into our reading. Sites like LibraryThing and Shelfari are only the beginning. The website BookGlutton is probably more akin to what the future holds – allowing people to annotate their books with their own comments and share them with a community of like-minded readers.
Gone will be the days of pouring over countless essays and digging through scholarly journals to find the latest criticism on a novel/short story/poem you’re reading for school. It will be right there, in digital form, merged with the text as you read. Thus everyone will become a ‘literary critic’ in a sense.
I’m not sure if it will get annoying to see ordinary readers debating the merits of such-and-such author’s newest novel. I am sure, however, that such commentary will probably offer some interesting insights into the text and let readers dive deeper than just the meaning on the surface.
The marriage of ebooks and social media
Yes, ebooks are going to play a huge role in this merging of two fairly new technologies. You can’t read the latest comments on a particular chapter in a print book, now could you (I guess if you go online to read about it, but that seems so 2001-ish)? It is my hope that in the near future, ebooks will allow this social element of reading in a non-distracting way (allowing you to turn comments on and off). Sometimes I just want to read a book for the sake of the entertainment and escapism that reading allows.
Only time will really tell how social media and literature will work together. Maybe we’re just seeing a fad that will die out in a year or two. Maybe not. It’s too hard to say right now.
Do you use literary social media sites like LibraryThing? If so, have you found it to enrich your reading experience, or just one more distraction to deal with? Leave a comment with your thoughts below.
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