Online book communities are an excellent way to share your thoughts about books you have read as well as discover new books to read. Most book communities offer basic functions for organizing books, but others offer additional features that make take reading to an entirely new level. Below, I review several of the more popular book communities. I list some of their standard feature and also rate them based on user friendliness, appearance, features.  Scoring in based on a 1-4 scale. (One being the lowest)

Biblionasium – https://www.biblionasium.com/

·      Many features provided

·      Friendly tutorials

·      Can be used by Children/Adults/Educators

·      Book Lexile level included (Not available for all books)

·      Parent Letter included to inform parents of goals

·      Allows the teacher to assign reading challenges

·      Students can receive emails messages

·      Provides book recommendation

·      Allows teachers to modify settings

·      Allows users to send book reviews with other students

·      Kid friendly

·      Easy to use

Friendliness ****

Appearance ***

Features ***

Overall, great for educators and students!

Booklikes - http://booklikes.com

·      Allows customizable shelves

·      Provides colorful book covers

·      Connects users with book reviews and blogs

·      Has a feed of information among friends

·      Similar to Facebook in setup

·      Allows tags

·      Timeline for books read – goals

·      Offers promotional deals through amazon

·      Book giveaways

·      Easy to use

Friendliness ****

Appearance ****

Features ****

Great for all types of users. 

Shelfari - http://www.shelfari.com

-       Allows users to describe characters

-       Users can rate books

-       Customizable shelves

-       Wider selection of books available

-       Supported by Amazon

-       Allows tags

-       Colorful book covers

-       Connects users to book discussions

-       Customizable profile and settings

-       Provides additional information on books (publisher, pub.date)

Allows user to set goals

Allows users to rate gifts

Friendliness ***

Appearance ****

Features ****

 Excellent for users who want to customize their account.

Library Thing - https://www.librarything.com/home

·      Clean page setup

·      Customizable shelves

·      Book covers available

·      Allows users to share reviews

·      Users can add tags

·      Users can read book reviews

·      Book discussion forums

·      Easy sign up (no email required)

·      Book recommendations

·      Access to widgets

Friendliness ***

Appearance ***

Features ****

Excellent features better suited to older users.

Good Reads – Goodreads.com

·      Allows users to rate books

·      Provides book reviews for all books

·      Includes a wide range of book titles including graphic novels/comics

·      Share book general book reviews

·      Makes recommendations based on previously rated books

·      Connects to Amazon to upload books

·      Allows users to follow authors and receive information about them

·      Allows users to modify settings

·      Provide a discussion link for book discussions with other readers around the world

·      Recommends current titles that others are reading

·      Good for use with older students or adults

Friendliness ***

Appearance ***

Features ***

Good for use with all types of users. 

In the end, I decided that Biblionasium would be best used in my classroom, and Library thing would serve me better for personal use. Biblionasium, offers students, teachers, and parents more options and a friendlier user interface. Library thing appeals to me for personal  use because it allows me to connect to both Amazon and Library of Congress. As an educator and future librarian, the ability to have access to a wide range of books is what won my vote. In order to pick the right one, I would first consider the purpose of your book community membership. Then pick the one that meets your needs and helps serve your purpose.