#11: LibraryThing

Well this is something new again! I have been playing around with trying to work out how to embed my LibraryThing book shelf into my post and realised that it probably works better on by blog page instead! The above Chicklet was a lot easier. I also noticed that there was an opportunity to subscribe to my account by RSS feed too. Here is the link to my catalogue but imagine subscribing to the big libraries or to interesting collector's accounts!

I browsed through LibraryThing and found a few favourites and also found 'The IWB Revolution' by Chris Betcher and Mal Lee. I had to add that book to my shelf as I was one of the 8 contributing teachers from around the world to talk about how I used IWBs in the classroom. The popularity rating was well over a million but there were no reviews for this book so I became the first one.

I think LibraryThing would be really useful in a school. Imagine the focus a teacher would achieve if they created a library widget that highlights great literature from the school and local library and embedded it into the school website or the class blog. A teacher would have to join LibraryThing under a professional name so the students couldn't view his/her personal library.

Just had another idea (probably not new but it is to me). Image the impact a class LibraryThing would be on other classes across the same grade. Students given a voice to collaboratively collate and recommend a reading list for their peers. The LibraryThing account would be something like '4A's 2010 Book Shelf'.

Imagine how fantastic a student's own LibraryThing would be instead of the plain old boring Reading Book Log students have to fill out with mundane fill in blanks such as 'book title', 'author', 'how many pages read on this date' and a one word comment on the book such as nice or boring. It would certainly interest reluctant readers by helping them to identify books that address their interest.