The pressure to read

I'll admit it, I joined GoodReads a few months ago when I was it was mentioned by a writer I enjoy. I really joined just so I could be her "friend" and see what she reads. I entered a few things (her books, of course) and then promptly forgot about the whole thing. So, when I got to this point in Web2.0, I really looked around my GoodReads account and have been surprisingly pleased with what I found.

I have added friends (people I actually know) by surfing friend lists and have found a few interesting books on other's pages to add to my to-read shelf. Unfortunately, I don't have time to read more than a magazine article or scan the odd issue of the Willamette Week so my read shelves are a tad thin. I also have no memory for things like titles and authors which is really why this is such a useful site for me (and other like me, I know they are out there though maybe not librarians). I used to try to keep up a reading journal but I would misplace it or forget about it. And when I try to use it, it was in aphabetical order! I would end up flipping through it to find something I had added years before. This web version is at home, at work, always right where I left it and because I can put any given title on multiple subject "shelves" I should be able to find that book I can't remember the name of at the moment.

And I like that I can search the existing shelves of other GoodReaders, but (here comes the librarian in me) I have the same problem that I always have with tagging, what did the others choose for a tag? In scanning the "Top Shelves" I find: childrens, young-adult, children, youngadult, childrensbooks, ya, kids, picture-books, childrens-books, children-s-books, teen, children-s, and picturesbooks. This makes finding all the picture books or books for children or for teens cumbersome at least. If I search for young_adult, I get a lovely list but there is nothing to suggest that I also try young-adult, youngadult, ya and teen as well. Just my issue with social-tagging, it's useful but has its problems.

Now if my kids would just get a little older, I might find some time to read the titles on my to-read shelf!