Archive for the ‘Bookshelf’ Category

Both my wife and I are heavy readers, sometimes even going through 4 or 5 books in a week. Although friend recommendations help (including our good friend amazon.com), we always have a hard time finding new good books.

With so many book listing/sharing sites on the internet, we decided to try some of them out. Since most of these sites have suggestions features, we used the same five books at each place: Nicholas Christopher “A Trip to the Stars”, Paul Auster “Mr. Vertigo, Carlos Ruiz Zafon “La Sombre del Viento / The Shadow of the Wind”, Cormac McCarthy “Blood Meridian” and Jonathan Safran Foer “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” (you can see them all here).

Here are our opinions.

(1) Library Thing -

This is one of the first and best-known booklist webpages with 19 million books cataloged. Free members can only list 200 books before having to pay $10/year or $25/life.

Wynn says: I like that the searches come up directly through Amazon.com or other sources, since Amazon doesn’t always have all foreign-language books. Very easy interface for adding. The member reviews are pretty good but I wish there was always a basic description of the book (plot, etc.) like on Amazon.

Library Thing has some of the best bells & whistles, such as code to stick in your blog, cell phone and rss notifications, etc. There is also a heavy focus on tagging if you’re into that sort of thing. The Zeitgeist page is a great resource for finding stuff other people like.

The suggestions are pretty good as well but for me the most useful is being able to browse through the collections of all the other members. The best thing about this site is the active member community. I don’t think I would get too involved in the forum talks or rely too much on people’s ranking and reviews, but it’s nice to have so many people chiming in.

Cheli says: I like that it shows you all the different covers for the books and that you can choose which one you want to use. The idea that you an unsuggest a book that stems from one you liek it very good, but to less internet savvy people… how do you unsuggest? I couldn’t do it. Still, I don’t know if I would really get into using it. To me it’s the same thing as Amazon but a bit more cumbersome to use.

Our grade: A-

(2) Goodreads -

One of the other more popular sites with a useful facebook application.

Wynn says: A nice clean interface and some cool options that aren’t on Library Thing, such as the ability to add your own writing. Since it’s ad-based there are no input limits and many of the same bell & whistles, such as code to embed on blogs, etc. There is also a facebook widget which is pretty useful although not as good as the visual books ap (see below).

I like that when signing-up they look through my contacts to see who is already a member. The site does a good job of balancing the community networking without overshadowing its functional use.

Cheli says: Many things I like. Primarily, that you can see what your friends, or your friend’s friends have read. Voyeuristic fun and also a good reading guide. It’s also nice that people post their own writing. Are these things people would want to publish? Do they copyright? Do they share just for fun? To get it out there?

Our ranking: A-

(3) Reader2 -

A little more bare-bones than LibraryThing but 100% free and with many similar functions.

Wynn says: I like how the images pop-up on the side while trying to add books. The brief description is good and the “What to Read Next” options takes me straight to what I’m really interested in. Doesn’t look to be the same kind of community as on Library Thing, but there are a good number of suggestions on here. Tags seem to be the best way to navigates. Overall, decent, but gets overshadowed by Library Thing.

Cheli says: It’s not so pretty and it’s not so useful.

Our grade: C

(4) Listal -

A social networking site socializing around media.

Wynn says: Looks like an interesting sites for people interested in various types of media and meeting other people. The ability to add YouTube videos is unique to the site and the site, overall, is pretty attractive and 2.0-y. I had a hard time find some of the books (eg, when I tried searching for Nicholas Christopher nothing came out, but Trip to the Star came out when I searched for the title).

Unfortunately, the site seems to be more about social networking than finding new stuff to read. I had a hard time coming up with recommendations. I had to put in alot of entries and add friends before anything came up. I don’t need another social-networking site and don’t think it’s worth all the trouble just to come up with more stuff to read.

Cheli says: I’m too lazy to bother with this site.

Our grade:B-
(5) Lib.rario.us -

Lib.rario.us is another catalog page for books and all media types. Still in alpha.

Wynn says: Not too attractive a site and obviously still in early development. I like that there is a del.icio.us style add to favorites to put items from amazon on the site although the library thing interface is still much better. Doesn’t look like there are too many users - when I was on, I didn’t see anyone else under the “see who else is online” feature.

Cheli says: Either I’m too dumb to get this site, or all it really does is catalog your stuff. And the you can also see other stuff, randomly put together…

Our grade: C-

(6) Bibliophil -

One of the original book cataloging sites.

Wynn says: A bit out of date techwise, but there are still some good suggestions on the phpBB message board. Not too much point of going through the trouble to add my books here since it is so much easier on some of the other sites. Nonetheless, will probably spend a bit of time going through here looking for good reads.

Cheli says: Looks like a webpage from the 90’s.

Our grade: B-

(7) Visual Bookshelf -

The most popular facebook book cataloging application.

Wynn says: This seems to be the application that most of my facebook friends are already using. I like that I don’t have to sign-up or do anything since it works right in facebook. The best feature is that all of my friends’ books get listed together making it easy to browse. It’s also a fun way to meet other facebook users with the same taste.

A cool little ap but not exacty a substitute for the breadth of tools and options on Library Thing.

Cheli says: Again, love to see what friends are reading. I like that all the book covers are nicely lined up. Very nice that you click right onto Amazon.
Our grade: B+

Bottom line Wynn: Library Thing really is the best option out there and I could even image paying the $10 or $25 if I really get into it. But honestly, I think I’ll be using Visual Bookshelf since it works 100% in facebook and it’s so easy to use and see my friends suggestions.

Bottom line Cheli: My favorites are Visual Bookshelf and Good Reads because they’re very visual, and I can easily see what my friends are reading. The book covers are nicely shown, which really is so important… and peeking at friends’ reading lists is so much better than random “recommendations”.

Textbook Torrents is a Pirate Bay for textbooks, lectures and other learning materials. Without passing judgment on the legality of the site or materials, I’ll say that is has some excellent materials and a whole lot of them - particularly in the “Arts” tab. FYI - I had a bit of trouble creating an account (the page kept failing) but seemed to work after a couple of goes.

I’ve just finished Charles Vest’s The American Research University from World War II to World Wide Web. Vest was president of MIT when OpenCourseWare was proposed, and has been one of the strongest proponents of the project and the concept. The American Research University (published under full copyright by the U of C Press) is based on speeches given by Vest as the 2005 Clark Kerr Lecturer on the Role of Higher Education in Society.

Vest was president of MIT for thirteen years, an extraordinarily long tenure during which he witnessed extraordinary changes in how universities do business, and this book is filled with observations that can help emerging leaders of open education projects understand the pressures faced by senior leadership at universities. The book contains four chapters covering the relationship between universities and government, universities and philanthropies, universities and terrorism, and finally universities and openness. While the last is the most directly on the topic of openness (it recounts the development of MIT OCW), the others are probably as relevant, especially given that nearly all open education projects have sustainability issues, and because opening knowledge is both more challenging and important in a post 9/11 world. Very much worth the read.

One book that has really influenced my understanding of how open education affects the production of course materials is MIT Professor Eric von Hippel’s Democratizing Innovation. Published in 2005, this book doesn’t address open education or educational resources directly, but rather it discusses how companies are taking advantage of lead user innovations in a range of fields including, among other things, the manufacture of kite surfing equipment.

von Hipple’s book has a lot to say indirectly about how educational materials may or may not be suitable for reuse. One basic idea von Hippel puts forth is that the wider an audience a particular product is designed for, the less satisfied on average any one audience member is likely to be with the product. This is one challenge that designers of learning objects must grapple with.

He also describes how innovators often are less interested in the details of a particular product’s implementation than in the approach taken to create the product. The details usually differ enough that the innovator cannot directly borrow the product, but can fashion a similar product from scratch using a similar approach. This makes me wonder whether localization is less a process of adapting existing materials to local conditions and more a process of using openly published models to fashion new materials from scratch to address local needs.

Like Wealth of Networks, Democratizing Innovation is available for free as a PDF under a Creative Commons license.

A great many people (including myself) have become involved in the open educational resources movement out of an attraction to the mission–out of the sense that sharing educational materials openly is a good thing and can help people on a global level. There is not a more passionate, well-reasoned, and compelling description of the role that increased opportunity (including educational opportunity) plays in global development than Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom.

It’s definitely a book about economics, so be prepared from some relatively dry technical discussions of economic issues, but the book is imbued a strong moral argument that you don’t measure development by wealth but rather by the opportunities and freedoms that people have to make choices regarding their lives. From the introduction:

Development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or overactivity of repressive states. Despite unprecedented increases in overall opulence, the contemporary world denies elementary freedoms to to vast numbers–perhaps even the majority–of people. Sometimes the lack of substantive freedoms relates directly to economic poverty, which robs people of the freedom to satisfy hunger, or to achieve sufficient nutrition, or to obtain remedies for treatable illnesses, or the opportunity to be adequately clothed or sheltered, or to enjoy clean water or sanitary facilities. In other cases, the unfreedom links closely to the lack of public facilities and social care, such as the absence of epidemiological programs, or of organized arrangements for health care or educational facilities, or of effective institutions for maintenance of local peace and order. In still other cases, the violation of freedoms results directly from a denial of political and civil liberties by authoritarian regimes and from imposed restrictions on the freedom to participate in the social, political and economic life of the community.

Sharing educational materials openly is an opportunity to feel that one has directly made the world a little less unfree, and perhaps provided some tools for others to make it even less so.

One of the best general backgrounders to intellectual property issues in higher education I’ve come across is Who Owns Academic Work? by Corynne McSherry. It was published in 2001, and so predates the open education movement, but it’s a great exploration of the intellectual property battles leading up to that point.

What I enjoy most about the book is the breadth of it. Rather than simply being a legal history of intellectual property, it explores the epistemic underpinnings of the concepts of the author and intellectual property. It then uses this framework to explore many of the controversies surrounding ownership of academic work, including ownership of course materials. It’s a great book for developing a deeper understanding of just why universities would choose to give educational materials away for free.

There are many people who talk about the value of collaborative and community creation, but none so convincingly as Yale economist Yochai Benkler. If you get the chance to see him speak, don’t miss it. If you don’t have the chance, then definitely read his latest book, the Wealth of Networks, which is available through bookstores, online and otherwise, and also as a free PDF from his web site.

Wealth of Networks documents the emergence of what Benkeler calls the “networked information economy,” where information is not produced and distributed centrally, but rather emerges from various market-driven and nonmarket sources. He then traces how this new economy affects what he calls “a series of commitments of a wide range of liberal democracies,” including individual freedom, a more genuinely participatory political system, a critical culture, and social justice. Finally he sets out an agenda for seizing this moment in history and harnessing the power of the networked information economy to create positive political and cultural change.

The book runs 473 pages and is packed with detail, examples, and some of the most thoughtful and carefully crafted arguments supporting the power of collaborative creation in the digital sphere. A deep read, but well worth the effort.