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introducing readers to writers since 1995

October 17, 2006

express your shelf

by dj

Over at bookburger, we posted a while back about Librarything, the site that lets booklovers catalogue their collections online and exchange deep thoughts with like-minded obsessives.  Last week, we received an invitation to join a new site called Shelfari, which appears to be borrowing from Librarything....It's a small community now, and it's still in beta, but since we're connoisseurs of book jacket design, we do like the visual way that Shelfari displays its members' collections, in rows of big bright images—like a shelf with all the covers facing out. But we miss librarything's cool social-networking functions, especially the ability to pinpoint (and then converse with) the other weirdos who shares your taste for both manga titles and marlin-fishing manuals...For serious bookheads, these sites are total voyueristic--and exhibitionist--thrills. If you're into exposing your shelf, they'll enable you.

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And did you know that this is Teen Read Week? If that sounds like an oxymoron to you, you're not all wrong. From the American Library Association's website:

"The number of 17-year-olds who report never or hardly ever reading for fun rose from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004."

And that was before YouTube blew up.

So, to honor those front-line warriors in the fight to keep books relevant, we're running a search for America's Next Top Librarian. Tyra Banks will judge the contest (or if she doesn't show up, we'll just do it ourselves).

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