LibraryThing and other readers' communitites

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LibraryThing and other readers' communitites

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1laurel_
Oct 14, 2007, 10:40 am

Hi everyone! Thanks for joining the group! Maybe we should kick things off with a self-referential discussion...How do you think LibraryThing (and other similar projects) fit into the archetypical author/publisher/reader relationship? Is Web 2.0 really bringing authors and publishers in closer touch with their readers or doing something else entirely?

Also, to me one of fun things about LibraryThing was that I can be an individual acting like an institution, if that makes any sense. There's something that feels really neat about codifying one's personal library, even the stuff that's pretty ephemeral and random. Maybe all the tag clouds, lists of how many other people read the same books, etc. create a satisfying feeling of defining my taste and my identity as a reader, and being able to compare it to everyone else's...Have you had the same experience? What's the readerly draw for you?

2the_bookshelf Primer Mensaje
Oct 15, 2007, 9:32 pm

I'm sure this site helps authors interact on a personal level with readers, and vice versa. It's also a wealth of information in terms of market research. Authors, but more importantly publishers, can easily see which readers are reading what.

But for me, this site is more about readers interacting and influencing other readers. What drew me here (other than the fact that I can finally, and easily, make a working list of all my books) is that I find libraries similar to mine, and see what books are in it that I have never heard of yet want to read/ own. I'm not in university anymore, and so can't rely on getting a fresh reading list each semester. (And I feel I've exhausted all those possibilities, anyway.) I live in a country where there is essentially one big book chain, and my areas of interest are unique enough that they don't always readily stock titles in which I'm interested. (Not really: they should stock them, but that's a whole other debate.) I enjoy going to independent and used bookstores and browsing abebooks, but often I'm looking for a needle in a haystack. This site lets me find what I'm looking for when I don't know precisely what I'm looking for, and many other things along the way.

It's also a nice gathering place where you can be sure people are more "serious" (in a sense) about books and reading than elsewhere on the web.