Trending: Social Reading

Joyce Saricks passed this article on to me.  It happens to be by a Dominican student (although not one who took our class).

Entitled, What Is Social Reading and Why Libraries Should Care, Allison Mennella defines social reading and discusses at length how libraries can promote and encourage reading and the sharing of books across digital platforms in their communities.

Now social reading is not that new of a trend.  People have been using Facebook and Goodreads to have conversations about books for years now, but libraries have been slow to join in.

This trend is growing and it is one I have been particularly interested in too.  As noted here in my 10 Rules of Basic RA Service, I have seen "bridging the physical-virtual divide" as developing into a key issue in RA service.

For me, however, I am less focused on the social networking for its own sake, and more interested in how we should think of our virtual work with leisure readers as the other side of the same coin of the work we are already doing to help the readers who come into the physical building.

I see the key to any success with the library's involvement in social reading coming only if we keep the book at the heart of it all.

But take a look at Allison's article on social reading.  She has a lot of good ideas on how the library can connect virtually with readers throughout their community.

For those who are interested, I will be talking about this issue at greater length next week at Reaching Forward, and I addressed it briefly in this article for NoveList RA News.

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