Booksprouts another resource for starting or running a book club

Booksprouts: The Online Community for Book Clubs

The other day a friend drew my attention to this website called Booksprouts. Booksprouts' goal is to make book clubs a fun and easy experience for everyone.

Reading is an usually solitary experience but it doesn't always have to be. Sometimes it is nice to bring in other individuals. Talking about books can enhance your reading experience and tighten social contacts.

If you feel like sharing your reading experiences with people close to you, one way to do this is start a book club. Booksprouts recognizes that this can be difficult to do. Friends may live and work far apart, and it is hard to find the time when everyone in a group can meet. Booksprouts' solution to the problem of time and geography is to provide a forum for online book groups.

It is hard to organize a book group, and once you are organized it is hard to choose the books to read. Booksprouts say they make it easy to start a club, join a club, invite your friends, choose a book, and discuss. Booksprouts introduces Book Choices to help book clubs agree on what to read, they automatically create and organize online discussion spaces for each book, and they help clubs manage their member lists and their club meetings.

I looked at the Booksprouts website and found it very easy to understand and navigate. You can search for a book group to belong to by geography, subject, author, or title. You can start your own book group. You can find books by title, subject or author and you can see a list of current hot books. You could use the site just as a resource to find books to discuss in your existing group.

The site is still in Beta mode, so I did not see many reviews of the site. At least one public library is using it. The reviews I did see could not understand how the site will make money. I found the Booksprouts blog which gives a rationale of why they started the site. At the moment it is free to sign up to join or create a book group. Some groups are open and some are invitation only.

Some reviewers wondered why we need yet another book sharing site, mentioning LibraryThing, Shelfari, etc. You should check the site out for yourself. If you have been struggling with finding a suitable book group, online may be the way to go.

My Next Good Book - a new service of HCPL and ReadersPlace

FIND A GOOD BOOK, SHARE WHAT YOU ARE READING, TAKE PART IN DISCUSSIONS, MEET AUTHORS, CREATE BOOKSHELVES

Readers Place has just launched a new interactive service for HCPL customers looking for their next good book to read. My Next Good Book is both an interactive source of reading suggestions and a place to participate in book discussions, with over 6 million books to choose from!

My Next Good Book lets readers either just browse for book suggestions, or, after login, compile any number of personal bookshelves, leave comments on the books, or share the shelves with others.

My Next Good Book is customized. My Next Good Book is tailored to HCPL needs. My Next Good Book is part of ReadersPlace on the Harford County Public Library website, and has links direct to our catalog from the recommended titles.

Most important, My Next Good Book is personalized for each account holder. That’s why it is called, “My Next Good Book!”

My Next Good Book has a special area for reading suggestions from Harford County Public Library staff. Featured are lists for new fiction and large print on order for HCPL, with links to the catalog for each title. HCPL Director, Audra Caplan has posted a list of books she has read recently. Readers have given us their favorites from Winter Reading for you to browse.

Our intended audience is adults, though there is a book discussion group specially for teens. The book discussions are listed by topic. Click on the Book Discussions button at the top of the page. Also at the top of the page is a Meet Authors button. Meet 3 to 6 different authors a week.

Click on the “About” page to see all the ways you can use My Next Good Book. Check out the My Next Good Book page on ReadersPlace.