The Book Thing--#20

OK, I tried to read the article about "the future of the book," and I found a blog with all sorts of information, but none of it was really discussing the future of the book.
As Librarians, we have been discussing this topic for a long time. I remember the issue coming up in graduate school, 15 years ago when the internet was just becoming a known tool. We had email and Netscape, file sharing and listservs. It was all very mind blowing at the time. I remember the discussions about how academic journals were becoming irrelevant because, by the time the information was published, it was already old new.
I do see the dissolution of print when it comes to magazines and periodicals. It seems that we get a notice each week of defunct magazines and struggling newspapers. There are more and more e-journals and news blogs and we can read whole issues of magazines online.

I read the article about "Literacy Debate: R U Reading," and yes I can see the concern, but reading online is also reading. It's just blips of reading instead of long reading. Current society is perfect for people with A.D.D, because we are constantly moving our attention from one subject to another.
On with the things... I looked at the following sites:

Twitterlit-this was cute. I enjoyed reading the ticklers or first lines from the books, but I couldn't get further into the book. I guess I needed to sign up for an account and I didn't.

Dailylit-this was interesting and I did sign-up for an account. It seems to be promoting group reading. I wanted to read the book about western art, but I also realized that I would miss out on the images by reading the text. I'll have to see when I validate my account.

BooksinMyPhone-I won't be reading books in my phone because my phone is too small and I don't access the internet via my phone, even though it has the capability to do so--too expensive to add that feature. But while looking at the books listed, they seemed like old classics with free copyright, many of which I've read in my life, or that I'm not interested in reading.

Reading Trails seemed interesting and similar to Library Thing.

Booklamp did not interest me, so I really didn't go to far into it. I'm more more exploratory of a reader and like to read around.

I loved, What Should I Read Next! I typed in the title of a book I recently read and liked and I loved it that 10 suggestions came up immediately, several of which I had already read.

I've seen the What Next? DB before and it can be very useful. Now I see that Kent District Library has added a link to their catalog for the books and that's great for them, perhaps confusing for our patrons. This is a good service and can be done pretty easily in this database.

I didn't find Readerville very interesting because it's a forum about reading and a lot about writing. Since I'm not interested in writing...

Living Social is just a bunch of personal book reviews.

LitLovers seems like an excellent resource to connect to local book groups. I loved the reader's guides. They are comprehensive with lots of interesting information about the authors as well as discussion questions for the group. This is an excellent resource.

OK I'm getting overloaded...there's too much out there, I don't care anymore.

It's obvious that people like to connect around books and reading. It's a way of sharing ideas. It's more obvious that people want to give their opinion about what they are reading. What I see in the library however, is people wanting to connect with other people in person. I think all these online communities perpetuate isolation rather than help it!