I'm a firm believer that you can tell a great deal about a person by browsing through their library.
Unless you get invited to someone's home, your opportunity to do this is somewhat limited. When I commented on Sarah Cooper's review of Naked Conversations, she commented back that she'd like to know what I was reading and what books I might recommend. That made me pause a bit. I love sharing, but I'm also looking for the best and simplest way to do anything. So I went searching for a way to allow people to see into my library, and by extension, get to know me a little better as well.
I found several "online bookshelves" that were in beta. Two of them, Shelfari and Library Thing, really caught my eye.
Shelfari has the better "Web 2.0" feel. It allows you to categorize your books into various lists, top 10 list, books your currently reading, etc. But it's widget is a bit over the top. The metaphor of the bookshelf is take a bit to far for my liking.
Library Thing does not have as elegant an interface, but it's search seems faster. And I like Library Thing's sidebar widget better, so that is what you see down the right side of my blog now.
Both sites act as a social network for book sharing. The links above take you to my home page on each site so you can see the differences. They both allow you to join groups, share reviews and recommendations and you can include our Amazon.com Associates ID in your widget so that a portion of sales generated by your links go to you. If you don't have an Amazon.com Associates ID, you should.
I think both are simple to use and are a great way to allow your blog readers to see another side of you.
It's all about relationships.
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