November 20, 2014

Start-Ups Take Library Jobs | Reinventing Libraries

Start-Ups Take Library Jobs | Reinventing Libraries

Three years ago, I wrote in LJ that “libraries are so valuable that they attract voracious new competition with every technological advance.” At the time, I was thinking about Google, Apple, Amazon, and Wikipedia as the gluttonous innovators aiming to be hired for the jobs that libraries had been doing. I imagined Facebook and Twitter to be the sort of competitors most likely to be attracted by the flame of library value. But it’s the new guys that surprise you. To review the last three years of change in the library world, I’d like to focus on some of the start-ups that have newly occupied digital niches in the reading ecosystem. It’s these competitors that libraries will need to understand and integrate with to remain relevant.

Welcome to the Mothership: Travis Jonker’s Take on Amazon/Goodreads

Amazon Goodreads_vert

When word came out that Amazon was pulling social network Goodreads into its acquisitional tractor beam, reaction seemed to fall into one of two categories… Travis Jonker, a librarian who blogs at 100 Scope Notes, falls somewhere in between.

Goodreads Acquisition Presents Opportunity for LibraryThing

LibraryThing

Amazon’s recent acquisition of Goodreads will likely have a ripple effect on other social media sites targeted at book lovers, with LibraryThing and Bookish potentially drawing membership from any defectors unhappy with the sale. Meanwhile, many Kindle owners will be introduced to Goodreads for the first time, as the site’s social media functions are integrated with Kindle devices. “Goodreads was fully independent…. it made them the natural allies of people who wanted to avoid the consolidation of the industry, in particular publishers,” LibraryThing founder Tim Spalding told LJ.

Get to Know Goodreads: Share this primer to the social reading site and help teachers and kids connect with great books

Illustration by Mark Tuchman

That’s the first thing you do when you finish reading a book? Pass it along to a friend? Return it to the library? Place it on the unruly pile of titles that you charitably call your “office”? Scores of dedicated readers log on to Goodreads and share their opinions with the world. Imagine Facebook and your […]

Goodreads Choice Awards Enters Home Stretch, with 389,000 Voters to Date

Goodreads, the largest social networking site aimed specifically at readers, has more than 11 million book user-generated reviews and 100 million ratings in its database. Its members clearly have strong opinions—and Goodreads is harnessing them once again for its 2011 Goodreads Choice Awards.
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