Week 7, Assignment 3

For this assignment I've been reading Stacked and Teenreads. (Teenreads has tested my patience. It is very sloooow to load. But I'm trying to look beyond that since they have good info.) I really like the content of both sites; prefer the layout (and loading time) of the Stacked site. 

Stacked is produced by Kimberly Fransisco and Kelly Jensen, both librarians. The focus of this blog is on the blog content; other features line the margins of the page in smaller type, which makes it easy to see where the most current information is: in the middle. To my eye, it's a pleasing and streamlined layout. I feel like this blog is directed toward book consumers as well as book professionals--librarians, booksellers, etc.. They seem to talk about library things pretty often. And I love the entry Kelly posted today about her system's summer reading club. I am now kicking myself for shipping all the middle school entry slips back to Youth Services without mining them for the titles that kids are reading. Brilliant! Also, she mentions teens reading Nicholas Sparks. Quite a few teen girls have asked me for Sparks' books since summer started, and now that she says it on her blog, it makes me think that we could do a display of adult books that appeal to teens. (Jodi Picoult would also be on that display.)

Now to the other site. Teenreads seems to be directed at teen readers or any readers who enjoy teen books. They have a corporate team that manages their affiliated sites but also have a number of book reviewers, and they elicit input from their readers. Also found it interesting that Teenreads is part of a network of sites produced by The Book Report Network...and that this network includes a site called 20SomethingReads...which reminds me of the "New Adult" label I read about in Assignment 1 this week. Teenreads has a search features that enable readers to search by title, author, or (especially) genre. The site is busy with scrolling banners that change out every few seconds (surely that's part of the reasons the pages load at glacial speed) and it's packed with articles and features, so it takes a minute or two to figure out what the highlights are. I don't find the layout all that user-friendly, but it may just be me.

I like that both sites are not only current with new releases, they also include older titles for consideration. I'm glad to know about both of these sites and I'm sure I'll continue to refer to them.