[Web4lib] [learnrt] Book Review... Blog?

[Blatchley, Carolyn]

Stephanie and other interested parties,

 

The best free options I can envision are those you have already
suggested.  The only other free suggestion I have is working
LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com/) into the mix (or get a
better result by paying for LibraryThing for Libraries if your system
can afford it.) Reviewers would still need to be members with accounts,
but I'll bet it would be easy to stream an RSS feed from their entries
into a single site.   I'm not sure how it would work with having the
reviews pre-screened, but I'm sure there are active users out there who
can talk intelligently about it.

 

The Evanced product, which was purchased by the PA Commonwealth
Libraries for three years (may or may not be extended; may be purchased
locally) has a book review feature built into it which has worked very
well for our libraries.  It's not a "sexy" look, but it gets the job
done - we have hundreds of adult reviews and over 1000 teen reviews at
just one library (I didn't check the others. Below are two examples
using Evanced with Summer Reading groups, but this could be done in a
non-summer-reading environment, too.)

 

Adult Summer Reading at Fredricksen Library (Camp Hill, PA)

https://host8.evanced.info/fredricksen/sr/viewreviews.asp?ProgramID=7&Pa
geLangID=1&PreviewMode=&StyleName=&Clear=Y 

 

Teen Summer Reading at Fredricksen Library (Camp Hill, PA)

https://host8.evanced.info/fredricksen/sr/viewreviews.asp?ProgramID=8&Pa
geLangID=1&PreviewMode=&StyleName=&Clear=Y 

 

Another product for purchase that will allow interactive reviews is Next
Good Book through Dear Reader.
http://www.supportlibrary.com/fm/guest.cfm?x=1232   Our library system
has underutilized this particular feature of Dear Reader, but I know
that it does allow people to create accounts and comment on titles, and
reviews can be pre-screened.

 

Good luck on your search, and feel free to share the final decision.

 

Carolyn Blatchley

Training Services Coordinator

Cumberland County Library System

19 S West Street, Carlisle, PA 17013

717.240.5379 | cblatchley at ccpa.net

 

From: Stephanie Zimmerman [mailto:slzimm1 at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 2:59 PM
To: publib at webjunction.org; web4lib at webjunction.org; learnrt at ala.org
Cc: kgreenawalt at ephratapubliclibrary.org
Subject: [learnrt] Book Review... Blog?

 

Hello everyone,

Please excuse cross postings...

A staff member at one of the libraries we serve wants a "blog-like"
online site where anyone can post without having to register.  However,
he wants to be able to preview what they post before publishing it.
People can then leave comments on it.  There are 20 staff members and
lots of patrons who could contribute reviews but he doesn't want the
complication of registration nor the complexity of a wiki.  Basically he
wants editorial control without the hindrance of registration.

Told him I think a wiki is best way to go, but he will have to have
users register with that.  A clunky idea is to maybe create a WordPress
Blog where there is a Google Form on the front page they can type their
Book Reviews into.  He would then need to cut and paste that in as a
post, but essentially does what he needs.  

Also spoke to our Network Admin. about it and he doesn't see a way
around registration due to all of the spam that will come through.  He
also thought about maybe using an external authoring mechanism like
OpenID, Twitter or Facebook logins to avoid the registration issue.  But
that would only help those people who already have those types of
accounts set up.  It would still mean patrons not present in those areas
already would need to register...

Has anyone already done this type of thing?  If you are allowing
staff/patrons to submit book reviews, how are you doing this and do you
have links to the sites that you are willing to share.  Even if your
solution includes registration, I'd love to see what you've done.

Any help is appreciated!

Sincerely,

 

Stephanie Zimmerman

Training Coordinator

Library System of Lancaster County

1866 Colonial Village Lane, Suite 107

Lancaster PA  17601

phone:  717.207.0500 x 1281

fax:  717.207.0504

email:  szimmerman at lancasterlibraries.org

website:  www.lancasterlibraries.org
<http://www.lancasterlibraries.org/> 

Training Blog:  http://lslctraining.blogspot.com
<http://lslctraining.blogspot.com/> 

Library-Related Training Opportunities Calendar: http://bit.ly/1ORwk8

 

"I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand."
~Confucius 

 


The information in this message may be privileged and confidential and protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is neither the intended recipient, nor an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, then you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, unauthorized use, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and deleting it from your computer.  Thank you, Cumberland County, PA.