This is not the last post in this review series, there will be one last post about other websites and final thoughts.
Shelfari
Came into existence in 2006. Currently owned by Amazon.
Features and Pros:
1. STUNNING bookshelves. Yes, you have shelves in Mahogany, Rosewood, Walnut and more.
2. You can see the front cover of the books on the shelf.
3. Bookshelf gives it a nice professional yet vintage look.
4. Nice blog widget. Here too, you can have a shelf in the wood of your choice.
5. You can choose the width and height of the shelf on the blog, and the number of books per tier.
6. Mouseover reveals rating, title, author, whether you have the book, ability to add the book to shelf and basic rating.
7. List view includes a helpful bulk-edit feature. So you can change all books to Owned, Read or delete them all at one go.
8. Pleasant, colourful pages.
9. Many users, and the Amazon ownership, so you might get the edition you’re looking for. I did most of the time, but failed miserably when it came to my Biggles books. So, several of them have the boring blue covers on my shelf. About 80% successful edition-finds.
10. Discussion pages for each book and author, groups for books and authors.
11. Personalize your copy of the book. Add notes, ask a question, add a summary, add the number of pages, if the book is signed or not...
12. Keep track of books people have borrowed from you.
13. Lets you import books from Excel, tab-delimited notepad, LT or Delicious Library.
14. Your own public notes.
15. View your list on your mobile phone (m.shelfari.com). This feature is awesome when you’re in a bookshop and don’t know whether you have the book or not.
16. You find a book you are undecided about reading. One click and people will be willing to give you their opinions.
17. Download your library to hard disk.
18. Sign up to edit author pages (comes under My Contributions).
19. Invite friends from Yahoo, Hotmail or whatever.
20. Search boxes on each page – use author, keyword, ISBN or title.
21. Allows the following options:
Read
Reading
Haven’t read
Alongside, you have three more options:
I own
Wishlist
Favourites
Nice. All I have to do is send the link to my wishlist to my family before my birthday.
The Cons:
1. You don’t see the different editions right when you search. You need to add the book first, go to your bookshelf, click change cover, and then switch to the edition of your choice. After a while, you get tired of doing that, and just pick the edition you first see.
2. No delete button aside the books. To get them out of your bookshelf, you should move mouseover, un-tick the “I’ve read” and “I own” options.
While editing a book, you can’t upload a picture of the cover from your harddisk. Although Shelfari has promised that this feature will be added soon.
What I liked best: STUNNING bookshelves. Absolutely drool-worthy!
Came into existence in 2006. Currently owned by Amazon.
Features and Pros:
1. STUNNING bookshelves. Yes, you have shelves in Mahogany, Rosewood, Walnut and more.
2. You can see the front cover of the books on the shelf.
3. Bookshelf gives it a nice professional yet vintage look.
4. Nice blog widget. Here too, you can have a shelf in the wood of your choice.
5. You can choose the width and height of the shelf on the blog, and the number of books per tier.
6. Mouseover reveals rating, title, author, whether you have the book, ability to add the book to shelf and basic rating.
7. List view includes a helpful bulk-edit feature. So you can change all books to Owned, Read or delete them all at one go.
8. Pleasant, colourful pages.
9. Many users, and the Amazon ownership, so you might get the edition you’re looking for. I did most of the time, but failed miserably when it came to my Biggles books. So, several of them have the boring blue covers on my shelf. About 80% successful edition-finds.
10. Discussion pages for each book and author, groups for books and authors.
11. Personalize your copy of the book. Add notes, ask a question, add a summary, add the number of pages, if the book is signed or not...
12. Keep track of books people have borrowed from you.
13. Lets you import books from Excel, tab-delimited notepad, LT or Delicious Library.
14. Your own public notes.
15. View your list on your mobile phone (m.shelfari.com). This feature is awesome when you’re in a bookshop and don’t know whether you have the book or not.
16. You find a book you are undecided about reading. One click and people will be willing to give you their opinions.
17. Download your library to hard disk.
18. Sign up to edit author pages (comes under My Contributions).
19. Invite friends from Yahoo, Hotmail or whatever.
20. Search boxes on each page – use author, keyword, ISBN or title.
21. Allows the following options:
Read
Reading
Haven’t read
Alongside, you have three more options:
I own
Wishlist
Favourites
Nice. All I have to do is send the link to my wishlist to my family before my birthday.
The Cons:
1. You don’t see the different editions right when you search. You need to add the book first, go to your bookshelf, click change cover, and then switch to the edition of your choice. After a while, you get tired of doing that, and just pick the edition you first see.
2. No delete button aside the books. To get them out of your bookshelf, you should move mouseover, un-tick the “I’ve read” and “I own” options.
While editing a book, you can’t upload a picture of the cover from your harddisk. Although Shelfari has promised that this feature will be added soon.
What I liked best: STUNNING bookshelves. Absolutely drool-worthy!
Disclaimer: I am not trying to promote any of these websites, nor am I associated with them/their creators and employees. I’m just a user who signed up for a free account on all these websites, used each one for at least a week, spending the better part of my time looking around, before I decided to write this review. All views and opinions are mine alone. Now, these reviews are not comprehensive and there may be things I’ve left out. Feel free to correct or comment.
Next week: Conclusion. More websites and my recommended site.
I must confess that the bookshelf widget is what made me choose Shelfari in the first place! I'm also very happy to be able to download my list.
ReplyDeleteI will be even more happier once I can add my own book covers! Japan sells a lot of "international editions" that are not available in the UK or US, so the exact same covers don't show up quite often for me!
Must I say it again? Beautiful job RENU!
Once again, thanks for a great review!
ReplyDeleteYou've really put a ton of work into this. Nice Job. I hold back on further comment 'til your next post on the topic. DE
ReplyDelete