Group Bookshelf *shame*

[Vic]

Lea - I started to add some of the books we'd talked about to the group bookshelf. However, I wasn't very careful about the VERSION I linked to. I think we should link to the audio version but I couldn't figure out how to remove the books to replace them with the audio versions. I'm thinking only a moderator can do that. Sorry to add to your work. *duck from tossed tomatoes*

Another note on group bookshelf, next time we agree to group listen, we can add or update audio books on bookshelf with listen date etc... to help track that. I did go back and add book 1 of the Mercy Thompson in audio book form before I realized I couldn't remove the others. If I'm wrong and overlooking how to do this please let me know!

[MaryK]

Ooh, Vic messed up the group shelf!
:D

I wonder if we could put some of the books from past Speaking of Audiobooks columns onto the group shelf and label them recommended or recommended with reservations or something like that. It'd make finding recs for the Challenge much easier.

[Lea's Audiobooks]

Let's discuss how we want to use our group shelf. At one time Brenda had made some suggestions. Let me see if we can find those. The group listens is an excellent idea. I know I want to make a shelf of all books with mini reviews at the column. I simply haven't had the time to do so but anyone who wanted to dissect a column and add a review would be most welcome to do so! Maybe if a number of us worked at that, it could be created and maintained as a group. Let's also consider having a shelf for those books that have received significant discussion at the column. AAR has said we can copy those discussions and bring them over if we can decide how to utilize the material. I think a number of us keeping up the group shelves once we know what shelves we want is a wonderful idea. I have no problem correcting errors - I promise! I'd love to see our shelf fully functional

I do think our first shelf effort does need to be those SOA reviews. Are there a few who would start working with me on this? One of our original purposes of our Goodreads group was this listing of reviews with a link to the column in case there is discussion of the reviewed book.

Thanks for bringing this up.

[Vic]

I'm happy to help once you clean up my mess. :) *sigh* I'll be in time out until you get back to me. ;)

[Vic]

@MaryK - :P

[Lea's Audiobooks]

MaryK - you were reading my mind as I painstakingly wrote that long message on my phone. Thanks for summarizing the mini review portion so well. There are now 50 columns - maybe. Not all have mini reviews but many contain significant discussion of a book within the body of a column. Those could be used as well. I think we will now have a minimum of ten reviews a month so this will be a valuable resource for us and they won't all be my opinion!

[MaryK]

That's 'cuz I've been skimming through them picking Challenge books. I've resorted to using Google advanced search to pinpoint books I'm pretty sure were discussed.

I'll help with the dissecting. We probably need some guidelines so we can all do it more or less consistently. Would the link go at the end of the review as a reference?

[Lea's Audiobooks]

I'll post a few mini reviews to get the ball rolling in a while.

For those who are willing to take even a single column - it will be quite easy. Go to the Recent Listen section and copy the reviews. Usually there are two or three. More details later but please consider helping!

We also wanted to use the shelves for our Challenge Books - maybe a shelf for every category and we place our books on that shelf as we complete. Any brainstorming here?

And does the moderator have to start these shelves or can someone else especially good at organizing set up the shelves?

[Diane]

Shame on me. It never once occurred to me that I could do anything with our group bookshelf. :(

[Lea's Audiobooks]

Okay, I have cleared all the books from the bookshelf and we're ready to start again. I made a quick attempt at setting up our first shelf and wasn't successful at it. I have to spend most of my free time today writing the column (and trying to understand more of all this tagging within iTunes). Can someone please setup a "Speaking of Audiobooks Mini Reviews" shelf? I'll then post a couple of examples and we can get going on it and start a few other shelves as well.

Sorry your moderator is not so computer savvy as to immediately grasp setting up shelves. I know you need to start with a book to build a shelf. I wanted to use Shadowfever since it was recently reviewed on the column.

Thanks!

[Lea's Audiobooks]

I answered most of my own questions. Although I had a column to write, this kept bugging me and I now have the Mini Review shelf up. We should all be able to add to it now.

When adding, please keep these things in mind:

Discussion Leader – I’m recommending that the leader be the reviewer.

Choose the audio version.

We are not grading the review with stars.

Why We’re Reading This section – place the review here. Also, I’m removing the space between the narrators and the body of the review. You can then see more at a quick glance.

At the end of each review, include this info:
Written by Lea Hensley for Speaking of Audiobooks column 1/27/11. http://www.likesbooks.com/blog/?p=5857

The name, of course, will be the reviewer's. I have written the vast majority so if it is not tagged as written by someone else, it will be Lea Hensley. And then the date of the column and the link.

You can go to the shelf and see Shadowfever under the Mini Reviews shelf as well as All. I guess all books we list on our shelves will end up here? Wish that weren't the case but I don't see how to change that - does anyone else?

When posting Speaking of Audiobooks reviews from previous columns, it may be best to work from the most recent column to the oldest. Our reviews are meatier now than in those first columns. I'm starting a separate thread here for us to state which column we are working on at any given time so we will not duplicate our work.

I'm going to do a little begging here - please help us with these past columns!

[Vic]

Nice job! I'll take column from 1/11/11

[Lea's Audiobooks]

Other ideas for our Group Bookshelf from Brenda last fall:

Some suggested folders for us to start with would be:

A folder per author, or at least for the most popular?
Then book titles by that author would be the "topics" under each authors folder

Folder for narrator comments ... Rant's or Raves

Or Folder per narrator if we really want to get detailed

General or Misc Folder

Audible Sale Folder

An Introduce yourself folder seems pretty common in the other groups

[Brenda]

I went with Discussion Folders so that they were easily seen upon entering the Speaking of Audiobooks Group.

Our Group Bookshelf is just one more click away with the choices at the top right of any page in our group.

Folders with all our past discussion topics here at Goodreads are loosely organized at this point. Any suggestions for better names for the Folders or for new Folders are welcome.

[Lea's Audiobooks]

It's all looking good! I will need to rewrite the Welcome message - very dated and mentions only 11 members. We've come so far!

[Vic]

Think everything looks good!

[Brenda]

From a quick overview here I think all the pertinent details about getting the SOA mini review books moved to our group bookshelf are now covered in Leas newer post on the subject, now found under the General category.

I consolidated more folders into Topics that are now found under Audiobook Discussions. Things are looking neater, good call Vic.

One post per folder can be pinned/sticky-ed , so we'll eventually get some basic guidelines about posting in the Folder put in that spot.

Other than that, the Topics rotate to top spots as they are commented on. If you want to see something brought back that has left the front page just make a comment. I'm sure I'm the only one just figuring that out. :))