Getting to know Shelfari

When I logged in shelfari.com, the appealing book shelf on the welcome page attracted my attention immediately. It made me feel like just grabing books from my book shelf and reading at home.

After clicked "TAKE THE TOUR" button, I got to know that I could build a virtual bookshelf, see what my friends are reading, discover new books, and join shelfari for free. I was a little bit hesitate to join it because I hate having memberships and receiving many spam emails. However, considering the group project, I decided to join it. Becoming a member of it is very simple. I just clicked the "JOIN BUTTON" and filled some information; then, I owned the membership of Shelfari.

Now that I owned my membership, I could build my bookshelf. I tried to search the ELLE January 2009 which I was reading, to my surprise, I got one result. Then, I added it to my shelf. During this process, I could also give my comments about this magazine, rate it, tag it, and mark it with planning to read, already read, or reading now. When I searched books by most popular, I found that the "Twilight"was on the first, and the rating for it was 5 star. I started to wonder why this book was so popular. Therefore, I read many reviews about it. Some readers criticized it severely, while some others highly praised it. It's clear though that this book was pretty debatable and popular. So, why not added it to my bookshelf and marked it with planning to read as I indeed want to read it and understand why this book begot so many comments and applause.

During exploring this site deeper, I found that it has many functions. Except building a virtual bookshelf, seeing what your friends are reading, and discovering new books, readers can also influence peers by rating and discussing books online, discover and learn from people with similar reading tastes, participate in online book groups to further explore literature and share ideas, and discuss with authors.

It was my first experience with going through Shelfari.com. The experience was pretty nice. I found that there were various activities which I could particitate in. I became a member of it, owned my virtual bookshelf, and joined two groups.