When word came out that Amazon was pulling social network Goodreads into its acquisitional tractor beam, reaction seemed to fall into one of two categories—either Big Brother Bezos (as in Amazon CEO Jeff) has again sprouted horns and can’t wait to get his hands on your user data, or chill pal “Jeff B.” is throwing on his Ray-Bans, giving one of those L.L. Cool J kiss-two-fingers-then-make-a-peace-signs and is going to improve your reading life.

I’m somewhere in between.

While Goodreads runs ads, it isn’t directly selling the things it advertises. I like that. Amazon is definitely selling things, so there’s reason the acquisition is giving some pause and driving others to seek alternatives.

Additional uncertainty stems from the status of user reviews. Some are concerned that reviews they’ve written on Goodreads will end up on Amazon—a place they didn’t intend. I post reviews on both sites, so this possibility doesn’t bother me a whole lot—but might strike some as a mild form of theft.

A large motivation behind the deal is the prospect of bringing the Goodreads experience to the Kindle. I can foresee the Kindle talking to a user’s Goodreads account, updating the to-read shelf when a new book is purchased or borrowed, and marking it as read when finished. A couple quick taps would allow you see what friends are reading and recommending. As owner of both a Kindle and a Goodreads account, it will be interesting to see how they merge the two.

Libraries that lend Kindles will probably want to keep an eye out and stay on top of any new Goodreads integrations. It seems likely that other ereaders will follow suit, adding more social features.

For those interested in making a switch, there are other options. Unfortunately two of the most appealing are either completely (Shelfari) or partially (LibraryThing) owned by Amazon. It seems silly to jump ship to either of these.

One alternative is Riffle, which is more of a Facebook app than stand-alone website. But I feel like I’m bugging my Facebook friends when I fill their newsfeeds with the books I’m reading (granted, options allow you to share as much or as little as you’d like). After using the service, I realized I like keeping my reading social network separate. Riffle’s Pinterest-y interface has a nice look, but its features feel lightweight in comparison to Goodreads. It would make a good choice for a more casual reader.

Bookish is another option, with author and title information, original articles, and virtual shelves to keep track of reading. It’s much more of a recommendation engine than database. Enter books you’ve read and receive suggestions. The database is growing, but I found mixed results. It also has direct ties to publishers, which might make users seeking a bias-free zone a bit hesitant. It looks slick and functions smoothly though.

Booklikes is an interesting entry into the Goodreads alternative race. This site treats book reviews like blog posts. Sign up for the service and you get a blog to post about your reading in addition to star ratings, shelves, searching, and other familiar features.

Other options aren’t too promising: either confusing or in various states of abandonment. It quickly makes one realize that Goodreads is the best at what they do.

Getting down to basics with the Amazon/Goodreads deal, we have a company that sells books looking for a way to sell more books by improving how readers find new books. Goodreads, with its quickly-growing network of readers (myself included), was an attractive addition. Early signs indicate Goodreads won’t see a total change of mission, so I’m not clicking the “delete account” button yet. But, as with many other Goodreads users, it might not take much.

“Goodreads was fully independent…. it made them the natural allies of people who wanted to avoid the consolidation of the industry, in particular publishers,” LibraryThing founder Tim Spalding told LJ. “I have a lot of respect for Amazon. They’re a very smart company. But I’m personally worried about them controlling the entire book world, and it’s really kind of heading that way.”

The acquisition presents an opportunity for LibraryThing to build a stronger bond between publishers, independent booksellers, and the site’s 1.6 million users, he argued in a blog post shortly after last week’s sale was announced.

“Publishers are desperate to find a way out of the Amazon trap—needing Amazon, but also competing more and more with Amazon’s own publishing operations, and finding their individual and collective power declining as Amazon’s grows,” he wrote.

Spalding acknowledged that Amazon also owns a stake in LibraryThing, acquired when it purchased the popular online used bookseller Abebooks in 2008. (The company bought out social media site Shelfari the same year.) Abebooks had been a minority investor in LibraryThing prior to the acquisition, and Amazon has maintained its stake since the purchase.

However, reports that Amazon’s stake is as high as 40% of LibraryThing are inaccurate and fail to take into account that ProQuest affiliate Bowker is also a minority shareholder in the company, according to Spalding. He continues to retain majority ownership, but declined to disclose additional information about how shares of LibraryThing are divided.

Courting allies

Spalding predicts that that Hachette, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster will redouble their efforts with their social media joint venture Bookish.com, and noted that publishers were also demonstrating renewed interest in LibraryThing.

“We’ve already seen publishers writing us and saying ‘we want to leave the Goodreads early reviewers program [First Reads] and go back into yours,” he said.

As an industry observer, Spalding said he is most interested in how the Goodreads service will be integrated with Kindle e-readers and apps.

“The downside of that is that e-readers [as dedicated platforms] are inherently monopolistic,” he said. “The technology just lends itself to concentration. This just underscores that. But sharing is so much easier when you don’t have to type anything in…. I’m of mixed opinion about it myself. But [integrating social media into an e-reader] needs to be tried, nobody has tried it, and I think that they have a real opportunity there. I’m excited to see what they can do.”

Overall, Spalding sees little downside for LibraryThing as a result of the acquisition. Goodreads already had the largest user base, by far, in this segment of social media, and LibraryThing had continued to draw steady traffic and sell software to libraries including LibraryThing for Libraries, LibraryAnywhere, and BookPsychic. The acquisition by Amazon does give Goodreads additional heft, along with a new marketing platform in the Kindle, but independent startup companies often slow down once they are acquired and integrated into much larger corporations, he noted.

Many LibraryThing members also have accounts with Goodreads, and use the services for different purposes, Spalding said.

“They’re not fully competitors. A common use pattern is to use Goodreads as ‘here’s what I’m reading now,’ posting that to Facebook and interacting socially. And then LibraryThing is where you store your whole library. We have a lot of users who do that.”

Illustration by Mark Tuchman

That’s the first thing you do when you finish reading a book? Pass it along to a friend? Return it to the library? Place it on the unruly pile of titles that you charitably call your “office”?

Scores of dedicated readers log on to Goodreads and share their opinions with the world. Imagine Facebook and your public library having a baby (on second thought…) and you get the gist of the social network that millions have come to know, use, and depend on. You may not have heard much about Goodreads, and the public at large hardly knows it exists, but this site has a devoted following among book lovers. It’s a powerful and, occasionally, controversial way for readers to connect with one another, share their two cents’ worth, and decide which title to tackle next. It can also be a valuable professional tool to share with your students and colleagues.

Calling all teens, teachers, and librarians

Similar to Facebook, you must be 13 or older to sign up for Goodreads, which helps to explain why it’s a useful tool for recommending books to young adults. It’s also a great way to stay in touch during the summer, because students can see what their librarians or teachers are reading. And since kids can write reviews for the site, it also offers them opportunities to offer an in-depth analysis of the titles they’ve read.

For those of us who work in school libraries, there’s the added benefit of being on the cutting edge of kids’ book publishing. I’m constantly finding out about new titles—such as Kelly DiPuccio and Heather Ross’s Crafty Chloe (S & S/Atheneum, 2012), Steve Jenkins’s The Beetle Book (Houghton, 2012), and Martin Salisbury and Morag Styles’s Children’s Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling (Laurence King, 2012)—which inform my collection-development decisions and help me make savvier reader’s advisory choices. I can see librarians going wild with Goodreads’ bookshelf concept (more on that later)—creating virtual shelves for their favorite read-alouds and subjects, and those oft-requested topics (princess books, anyone?). Every year, I lead an after-school, professional development session on the year’s best books. With Goodreads, it’s easy to pull up my favorite titles to share with our teachers. And even if you don’t want to create your own interest-specific shelves, you can still benefit from looking at your friends’ shelves. OK, are you ready to take the plunge and join Goodreads?

Dig Goodreads?

Then you might also enjoy the following sites for book lovers:

Shelfari 

The look of this Amazon-owned operation is very visual with book covers galore. You can import your Amazon purchases and contribute to the wikilike “Book Facts” for each title. This information is available on the site as well as on Kindle devices and apps.

Library Thing 

This site (tagline: “Catalog Your Books Online”) is a utilitarian alternative to Goodreads. There are fewer frills, and the look isn’t as slick as Goodreads, but there’s also no advertising staring you in the face. The basics are all there: reviews, collections, groups, and discussions.

BiblioNasium 

Billed as “part kids’ social network, part parent’s guide, part teacher’s tool,” BiblioNasium is geared toward the education market, and it’s very kid friendly. Teachers can join, generate class accounts, and create a reading network with their students, who can respond to books and post their own reviews.

A few basics

I joined Goodreads in 2008, about a year after it was launched, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that many of the librarians and bloggers that I follow were using the service. It’s secretly popular, and it’s growing by leaps and bounds. In December 2011, BuiltWith, a technology information provider that tracks working websites, reported that Goodreads had “6,700,000 members who have added more than 230,000,000 books to their shelves.” And in August 2012, the Los Angeles-based company announced that over 10 million users had recommended more than 300 million books on its site.

My home bookshelves may be a mess, but on Goodreads, they’re immaculate. Many people, myself included, use the site as a de facto home library. By adding titles to various virtual “bookshelves,” Goodreads encourages its users to organize their reading and to reflect on what they’ve read. Members can assign a one- to five-star rating to each title they’ve completed, and their individual appraisals contribute to a book’s overall rating, which appears next to the title.

Inside and out

When you register for Goodreads, you have the option of letting the service check your email or social media accounts for any members you may know. Once you have a few friends, things get interesting.

If you have a Facebook account, you’ll feel comfortable—even peaceful—with Goodreads’ design and layout, because the site keeps clutter to a minimum. Its home screen lists “Recent Updates”—the equivalent of Facebook’s well-known wall of “Status Updates”—that indicate when friends have added a new book to their to-read piles, rated a book, or written a review. Overachievers, ahem, frequent users can even offer updates on the number of pages they’ve read in their most recent book.

If you’re new to Goodreads, one of the first things you’ll notice is that it has a few built-in shelves—“read,” “currently reading,” and “to-read”—for you to put your books on, but you can also create your own custom shelves. I have one for “Books Read in 2012” and a “to-review” shelf for some 2013 titles that I’m planning to critique, including Steve Jenkins and Robin Page’s My First Day (Houghton), Cecil Castellucci and Sara Varon’s Odd Duck (First Second), and John Coy and Joe Morse’s Hoop Genius (Carolrhoda).

From the home screen, you can easily set up a “Reading Challenge.” Simply enter the number of books you’d like to read this year, and Goodreads will track your progress. There are also plenty of social features. The site lets you compare books with friends, comment on reviews, and recommend books to friends. Members can also set up lists for others to vote on. I especially like checking out the Newbery and Caldecott lists, because they highlight titles that are getting good reviews and may be in the running for these prestigious children’s literature awards.

You’ll also find groups for every imaginable genre and niche—from manga to literary fiction to werewolves—which offer a place for those with shared interests to get together to discuss what they’re reading. You can also start a book club or create a digital counterpart to a club that already exists in the offline world. I belong to a mock Newbery group that has more than 800 members, and we always have lively discussions.

If sharing on the site isn’t enough, you can also create a widget that displays your books on your website or blog. It looks like a little bookshelf and flashes through the titles on any of your Goodreads shelves.

The organization benefits alone are worth the price of admission. Actually, since the price of admission is free, the benefits are worth way more. I love being able to quickly look back at my reading history. Plus, the ability to add filters—narrowing my search results according to the number of stars a title has—means it takes only seconds to pull up a list of my “five star” favorites.

Goodreads is also a helpful place to find basic book information. Summaries, pub dates, cover images, and genre details are available for any book you can think of. Underneath this information, you’ll find reviews from Goodreads users. Friends’ reviews always appear at the top, followed by other users’ opinions.

Goodreads’ free mobile app is another good reason to jump onboard. It’s well thought out, with intuitive touches that allow easy access to just about everything you can access on the regular site. It even lets smartphone and tablet users scan books’ barcodes—entering them into their “to-read” shelves without having to type a single thing. I knew I got a smartphone for a reason.

Controversy!

Any time “non-critics” are able to share their opinions worldwide, there’s bound to be some friction. While this sort of “review by committee” approach is something that rightfully makes many cringe, it invariably holds some power, and most likely guides many readers’ book choices. The “yea or nay” type of reviews that Goodreads allows (it should be noted that the site also offers an opportunity for lengthy, thoughtful reviews) may not be ideal, but the Harvard Business School recently released a study that shows that, in general, Amazon’s reviews (which are very comparable to GoodReads’) are more similar to a professional critic’s opinion than one might think. I’m not giving up my professional reviews any time soon, but this study provides some food for thought. As you might expect, this is a controversial topic.

The public nature of online reviews clearly has pros and cons. In some cases, it has increased the tension between readers and authors. Writers who belong to Goodreads should be prepared to occasionally give their thin skin a workout. I’ve heard of authors (I won’t name names) who have joined the service only to cancel their accounts because of unfavorable (and, in many cases, unfair) reviews of their work. Stories of unhappy writers directly contacting users to contest their negative reviews are also out there. But there’s a flip side: being a member of Goodreads allows authors to directly interact with their fans in ways that were unimaginable until fairly recently. And for readers, the chance to easily contact a favorite author to praise their latest book is a genuine 21st-century thrill.

Still, controversy occasionally erupts, as in the case of British thriller writer Stephen Leather, who admitted that he’d created fake Goodreads accounts so he could write positive reviews of his own works. He also, every now and then, gave other authors’ books one-star reviews to lower their overall ranking. Although this sort of deviousness is rare, it offers a glimpse into the “book review 2.0” world.

It’s a wrap

Now that I’ve been a member of Goodreads for a few years, it’s hard to imagine going back to the days when my only bookshelf was an actual physical object. I like that my unorganized mess of hard copies has a neat and tidy online counterpart. The organizational, informational, and social elements of the service have won me over. It’s a personal and professional win. Chances are, it’ll enrich your reading and teaching life, too.

Travis Jonker is a school librarian and an SLJ blogger (100scopenotes.com). His last feature for the magazine, “Travis’s Excellent Adventure” (September 2012), was about how to launch a successful ereader program.

What did people discuss during all this socializing? One topic: How reading, by nature a solitary occupation, can also be a social one. Educational technology consultant Linda W. Braun’s Saturday morning session, “Social Reading: Inside the Ebook Book Discussions,” examined the ways that talking about books creates connection among readers. And while sharing one’s enthusiasm on social reading site Goodreads is terrific, those exchanges happen outside the book.

Enter social reading within Ereaders. Typically, reading an Ebook allows for highlights, note-taking, and sharing on Twitter and Facebook from within the book. Braun showed her audience iPad apps that take social reading a few steps further. First, she introduced two book apps—Wonders of the Universe by Brian Cox (a 3-D tour of the universe, which Braun sees as the future of nonfiction) and Cupcakes! (an app for creating virtual cupcakes; the future of cookbooks).

Braun then introduced two free reading apps—Inkling (allows for purchasing a chapter of a book at a time, the creation of reading groups, and private or public notes) and Kno (a textbook app that provides detailed sharing options perfect for study groups).

David Levithan speaks at the YALSA Lit Symposium in St. Louis. Photo by Emily Goodknight.

But the bulk of the discussion focused on the Subtext app. Subtext allows for the creation of groups, the easy purchase of one title for a group of readers, the side-loading of EPUB titles onto the app (including original student work, for example) and extensive sharing features. It is not only possible to highlight and add notes to the original text, the reader can also tag those notes, mark notes as spoilers, keep notes private, or turn off the notes feature altogether. Every attendee of the session left with a code granting access to a free copy of Steve Hamilton’s (Alex Award-winning) novel The Lock Artist (Minotaur Books, 2010) and the ability to join a reading group to begin November 10th.

This opens up myriad possibilities for both classroom and literature circles. Using Subtext, teachers and librarians can be right in the story with teen readers. Teachers are able to insert questions within the text and implement a setting that cloaks other student replies until the reader has posted themselves. An in-the-book discussion could level the playing field for students who are slow processors. They could read at their own pace at home, taking their time answering questions within the text, yet still feel part of the discussion.

There’s great potential for book club discussions as well. Book club members unable to attend their meetings could still participate in the discussion within the book. Other uses? Prepping for author visits, sharing creative writing projects, peer editing, sharing alternative endings–the list goes on. In sum, Subtext allows librarians to be part of the reading experience. It’s all about building relationships with teen patrons.

On Saturday afternoon, Rollie Welch, collections manager at the Cleveland Public Library, led the session “Classic Literature vs.21st Century Novels: Survival of the Fittest.” The purpose was to share ideas for persuading adults who work with teens to move beyond assigning or recommending classics that rarely appeal to teen readers.

Earlier this year, at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, Welch led a pre-conference session in which the attendees chose the one book that every teen should be assigned to read in 2057. In other words, what contemporary YA books will survive as a classic? (At that session, it came down to a tie between Laurie Anderson’s Speak (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999) and Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief (Picador, 2005)).

The YA Lit Symposium session really got rolling when Welch shared 15 theme areas. For each area, he began with a classic novel typically assigned in school, then offered a contemporary novel and a nonfiction title on the same theme. Audience members had a wonderful time recommending alternatives and applauding their favorites. For example, for the theme of “Young Soldiers at War,” rather than assigning The Red Badge of Courage, why not try Craig Crist-Evans’s Amaryllis (Candlewick, 2003) or Evan Wright’s Generation Kill (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004)? In the Mystery category, rather than The Hound of the Baskervilles, consider Rick Yancey’s The Monstrumologist (S&S, 2010), or Richard Jones’s Jack the Ripper: The Casebook (Andre Deutsch, 2009). Rather than Robert Lipsyte’s The Contender (Harper & Row, 1967), try Paul Volponi’s Black and White (Viking, 2005) or Brian Shields’s The WWE Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to World Wrestling Entertainment (DK, 2009).

Welch believes that at least three on his list of classics will still be read and enjoyed by today’s teens–The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Even so, he offered Printz Award winner, Ship Breaker (Little, Brown 2010) by Paolo Bacigalupi as an alternative to the latter in the category of “Hero’s Journey of Self Discovery.”

The YA Lit Symposium is held every other year. The 2014 conference will be held in Austin, TX, over the Halloween weekend.

Angela Carstensen is Head Librarian and an Upper School Librarian at Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York City. She also blogs at Adult Books 4 Teens. Angela served on the Alex Awards committee for four years, chairing the 2008 committee, and chaired the first YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adult committee in 2009. Recently, she edited Outstanding Books for the College Bound: Titles and Programs for a New Generation (ALA Editions, 2011). Contact her via Twitter @AngeReads.