Week 3: Social Reading

After you finish a good book, what's the first thing you want to do? Talk about it with someone else!

Social reading is just a new term for what readers have always been doing: sharing their thoughts and feelings about books with other people. Add in social networks like Facebook and Twitter, along with interactive websites dedicated to book talk, and you have a social reader's paradise.

Companies are now jumping on the bandwagon and adding social reading features to their eReading devices.

Now doesn't that make you want to grab a book and start sharing? It's easier than you might think!

Our very own catalogue now has social reading features for patrons and staff. After setting up an account, you can:

• Comment on books you've read
• Suggest similar titles for a book
• Create and share lists of your favourite books
• Follow other readers with similar reading interests
• Share books or lists on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

These are all elements of social reading.

THING #7 - Set up an account in the Vision catalogue.

Go to http://vision.bibliocommons.com and find the Log In to My Vision button.

Use the barcode number on your library card to login the first time. Use this Vision FAQ sheet if you need help setting up your account. If you want your account to be anonymous, avoid using your real name in your username.

THING #8 - Create a list in Vision.

Now that your account is set up, it's time to start sharing the book love! Go to My Vision, My Lists to Create a New List. The FAQ guides on the right-hand side of the catalogue's screen can help you along. Add a few book titles to your list. The topic is up to you!

THING #9 - Share your comments about a book in Vision.

Choose one of the books in your list and click on its title to go to the full item record. Click on Add a Comment to share a few words about the book. Don't be shy, people love seeing what others thought about books they've read! And your username is anonymous. Your comments will show up at the bottom of the page, under Community Activity.

Hang in there, only one more Thing to go this week!



THING #10 - Follow a reader with similar reading interests in Vision.

Search for a popular or classic book that you've read. The goal is to find an item record with a lot comments under Community Activity. Click on the username (in blue) of the reader whose comment you like the best. If the reader has a public profile, you can view the books they've read. Click on Follow to keep track of the books this reader reviews. Now when you click on My Vision, you'll see the items that the readers you follow share, and usually how they've rated them. Keep a watch out for 5 star reviews and you could discover your next great read!

 

***Don't forget to write a blog post about this week's Things on your blog!***

Cool Extra THING - Join a social reading website.

Create a Goodreads account. There are mobile apps available for Goodreads for rating and reviewing on the go. Search for the app in your mobile device's app market.

How does social reading in Goodreads compare to in Vision? That's something to blog about.

Week 2: Social Networking (Twitter)

Twitter is a micro-blogging service (think mini, 140-character blog posts!) that allows you to send and receive short, snappy messages called tweets. You can follow other people and see their tweets on your homepage. It is a way to create a customizable, real-time, personal newsfeed.

How is Twitter useful?

• Current awareness: many use it to receive breaking news.
• Networking: connect with people who share similar interests. Follow local personalities, groups and businesses to know what is going on in your community.
• Marketing: promote programs, events or workshops to a large audience quickly. Showcase new books and other items of interest.
• Updating: let people know of any changes to services or open hours, library closures and catalogue downtimes.
• Sharing: tweet images and links to interesting articles and websites
• Spread the news: using the retweet (RT) function is a great way to spread news and ideas in a word-of-mouth style.

 
Terminology

• Tweet: A noun AND a verb. A 140-character message and the act of posting it.
• Follow: “Follow” people to subscribe to their tweets.
• Feed: The stream of tweets you see on your homepage is made up of updates from users you follow.
• Handle: Your username.
• @: place it before someone’s handle to address a public message to them.
• Retweet (RT): to indicate that your tweet was originally posted by another user.
• Hashtag (#): use to categorize your tweet so it is grouped with tweets of the same tag. A hashtag allows others to find your tweet based on its topic.

(Twitter has a full glossary here)

For more information, watch the video below and take a look at the Help section on Twitter.

 

THING #4 – Set up a Twitter account

Unless someone has set their privacy settings otherwise, you can view people’s Twitter posts without creating an account and logging in. In order to contribute and set up your own feed, you will need to create an account.

Go to twitter.com and enter your details in the New to Twitter boxes. Follow the prompts to activate your accounts.

 

 

THING #5 – Find library related accounts to follow

 

There are so many accounts on Twitter (over 140 million and growing!) that it can be overwhelming to find people to follow. You can follow people you know at first, then branch out and find someone who posts information you’re interested in. When using Twitter, don’t just follow the people you like, follow the information you want!

Start by finding library related accounts to follow. Need inspiration? Try searching for libraries, favourite authors, publishers or professional journals. Find someone with similar interests and see who they are following.

THING #6 – Tweet

Now that you have had a chance to see what others are tweeting, it is time to join in the conversation. Click on the icon in the top-right



Compose a 140-character message and post. Try adding a hashtag (#NB23) or directing your message (@…) to another NB23 participant.

If you see an interesting tweet, click Reply and add your two cents or use Retweet to post it for your own followers to see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***Don't forget to write a blog post about this week's Things on your blog!***

 

 

Cool Extra Thing – Tools for Twitter efficiency

There are tools to help you manage your Twitter account. Some of them even let you manage your other online accounts, like Facebook, LinkedIn etc. in one place.

Tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck let you schedule tweets to post ahead of time. Crowdbooster lets you track retweets, see how far your tweets are reaching and other stats.

What is HootSuite?

 

Try these tools. Which one do you think is more useful?