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NOTICE: The Bookshelf Feature
As of July 24, 2012, Read by Theme will be engaging in a trial run of the bookshelf feature. This trial period will last until September first, upon which date the decision to either keep or scrap the feature will be announced. You must read this guide to participate; failing to read the rules will exempt no one from them.How does this work?
There are three exclusive shelves: read, currently reading, and to-read. All three of these shelves are open to use by all members.
Beyond those three shelves, each theme will have its own shelf. The current theme's shelf will be at the top of the shelf list.
The final type of shelves are member shelves. Each member is permitted to have their shelf. As an example, you can view my shelf here. Note the title: Amara-5263888. That's my user name, then my user ID.
User Shelf Format
We have very quickly become a fairly large group, and some of us share first names. To distinguish everyone, please remember to put your user ID after your user name. To find out what your user ID is, go to your profile. My profile's url is http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/52.... The user ID is the sequence of numbers immediately after "show/". So, my user ID is 5263888--in other words, I was the 5,263,888th person to join Goodreads. ;)
A Warning
You must never fiddle with another member's shelves. Anyone caught purposefully doing so will be immediately removed from the group and banned from re-joining. But accidents happen. If you make a mistake that you can immediately fix, please do so. If you make a mistake that you cannot fix with certainty, you must let me know about it. You can do so here, or if you prefer you may message me. If I can't fix the problem with any certainty, I will get in contact with the person who owns the shelf in question. And remember--as I said, accidents do happen. It's not a bad idea to keep a backup of your shelf somewhere, either as a .txt file, a .html file, or whatever else you deem necessary.
The Currently Reading Shelf
Books on the currently reading shelf show up on the main page. And so it is requested that any books featuring pornographic or sexually explicit covers never be placed on the currently reading shelf. They may be placed on the to-read shelf while you are reading them, then discreetly moved to the read shelf afterwards.
Furthermore, the currently reading shelf will be purged on the first of every month. You must remember to move the book to the "read" shelf before then. Otherwise, it will be removed.
As a final note, please do not put anything on the bookshelf that is unrelated to the month's theme. Theme Rebels books do not go on the shelves and will be removed. Completely unrelated books do not go on the shelves and will be removed. Repeatedly adding unrelated books to the shelves will result in a warning; failure to comply with the warning will result in removal from the group. For non-theme books, please always remember to use your own account's shelves. Please help us keep the group shelves as focused and uncluttered as they can be!
Edit: I am astounded that I have to say this, but apparently I do. Authors, the bookshelf feature is not a place to promote your books.
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please place them below. :)
The bookshelves look fantastic! Thanks for all your hard work Amara. :)
Pleased to hear it, and I'm certainly glad it's appreciated! ;)
The bookshelves are a great idea. Good work to nut out how to set it all up.
I need some help please :) I can't figure out how to add my own bookshelf! :)
Helen wrote: "I need some help please :) I can't figure out how to add my own bookshelf! :)"Ah, I should have added that to the guide above. Forgive me! Here's how to do it:
On the main bookshelf page, type the name of the book you wish to add into the search box in the upper left corner.
From the list of selections, "add to group" the one you're looking for.
A dialog box will open. Click "choose shelves". You must choose either read, to-read, or currently-reading. After picking one of those three, you can select secondary shelves. Be sure to select the proper theme shelf.
Then on to the user shelf. If you already have one, scroll to it, then tick the box beside it. If you don't already have one, type your username dash your user ID into the "New Shelf" box. Hit save. This will create the shelf for you, and you will then be able to scroll to it and tick the box beside it.
After selecting your shelves, hit "save group book" and you're done.
If any edits need to be made afterwards, you can use the "edit" button to make them.
I'll try to get a picture guide to this up soon, though I might need a few days. :)
Amara wrote: "On the main bookshelf page, type the name of the book you wish to add into the search box in the upper left corner."Or you can enter the ISBN of the edition that you read. This can be particularly important for themes like "Blue Cover" so we don't have a bunch of non-blue covers on the shelves! :)
Looks great. Just one question. Can I add to the monthly shelf without adding my own shelf?
Varla Fiona wrote: "Looks great. Just one question. Can I add to the monthly shelf without adding my own shelf?"I'm inclined to say no, but I'm very much open to being convinced otherwise. ;)
Amara wrote: "Varla Fiona wrote: "Looks great. Just one question. Can I add to the monthly shelf without adding my own shelf?"I'm inclined to say no, but I'm very much open to being convinced otherwise. ;)"
I would like to add my books to the group shelf, to add to the collective pool of what was read, but am not bothered about keeping a specific record of my own reads. I can add my own shelf if needed, but wondered if that was really needed. Is there some other reason for adding my own shelf except for the record of what I have read?
I guess it's really up to you; it's certainly not needed for any reason at all, merely an interesting facet of group reading statistics. If you never intend to have a personal shelf on the group's page, you don't need to bother creating one.
Corynna wrote: "I love this feature!Just added my own shelf and hope I did everything right :)"
:D Looks good, with the exception of missing a theme shelf. (And if those two books correspond with the upcoming England theme, which I would assume they do, that's my fault as I forgot to add the England shelf!)
OK, so you mean the individual shelf shows how many books each person read, while the group one shows how many the combined group read. I'll add it then, as I like stats like that...
Exactly. ;) I too find the statistics very interesting--one of the biggest reasons I was interested in the shelving system, actually--but I think the decision should be thus: anyone who for any reason does not wish to create a personal shelf is not required to do so. It's merely suggested for some added fun and info.
Amara, in the guidelines you stated: "Furthermore, the currently reading shelf will be purged on the first of every month. You must remember to move the book to the "read" shelf before then. Otherwise, it will be removed."So, why would we add the books we plan to read in August, if they will be removed on the first of August during the purge? I'm confused.
I would understand that we put our August books in To Be Read now, as it is not August yet. After the purge, we move them to Currently reading, as it will then be time to start reading them...
......
Only the currently reading shelf is purged. The read and to be read shelves, won't be affected. The books on those shelves will stay and then can be moved.
I think she means that after the 1st (perhaps late in the evening of?), if you have not already moved your book from "currently-reading" to "read" then and only then will they be removed. If you are not online or forget, you could always re-add your book and file it under the shelf it goes :)
Doy. I feel like an idiot. :) Nevermind.
No worries, we all do things like that at times!!
Especially at this hour of the night (where I am, anyways!) ha ha
It's 3:30 a.m. here....way past my usual bedtime! Thanks for understanding!
I love this! The blue books look so pretty on the group home page.
The bookshelves look great and your instructions were very user friendly. Thanks!
Good job Amara! I love being able to see what everyone has read or will read in one place :)
Sorry about missing your question, HRO--I went to bed a few hours early last night, which brings me to the reason I'm dropping in here six hours before I usually do:I'm not going to be around today, as my day-trip--it's my parents' 26th wedding anniversary, and we're celebrating by taking our first vacation in years and going to Shenandoah National Park--has been pushed up to today because of some horrendous weather expected tomorrow.
So any questions, comments, or concerns will be attended to tomorrow; I'll try to check in tonight before I go to bed, but I'm running on quite a bit less sleep that I usually am, so... ;)
(And to everyone who's commented so far, I'm really thrilled to hear a positive response to this! Thanks, and glad you like it!)
This sounds like a really cool idea - especially good since this group is themed :) Gives me an easy way to check out other books.
Amara wrote: "Helen wrote: "I need some help please :) I can't figure out how to add my own bookshelf! :)"Ah, I should have added that to the guide above. Forgive me! Here's how to do it:
On the main bookshel..."
Thanks Amara! That's really helpful. :)
I wonder what do you do with the book you're sharing with someone after finishing reading? The status should be changed to "read" by the last person who finished it, or what.
I have a similar question. Is it okay to move books that are in read back to to-read for an upcoming theme?Ex: I plan on reading Kraken next month for the set in England theme, but it was already read by someone this month for the blue cover thing.
Is it okay for me to move it to the to-read shelf, which removes it from the read shelf? I didn't remove it from the blue cover theme shelf, but just want to make sure this is ok.
Also, I noticed that the group bookshelf page was missing the "select multiple shelves" feature (you can do this on you own personal shelf page).This would be extremely useful for us as we could use it to filter the shelves for our own uses.
I made a post about this on the Goodreads Feedback group, under Suggestions. See it here.
Dana wrote: "I have a similar question. Is it okay to move books that are in read back to to-read for an upcoming theme?Ex: I plan on reading Kraken next month for the set in England theme, but it was already..."
Now there's a good idea for a book to read... Count me in!
So all the books are put on the shelves instead of making a post about them? Or am I really confused.
Lamilla wrote: "I wonder what do you do with the book you're sharing with someone after finishing reading? The status should be changed to "read" by the last person who finished it, or what."I think that's going to need just a bit of feeling out before I can give a definitive answer. On one hand, it's probably safest for the first person to finish it to put it on "read", but then again, I would also expect that most people would want it on currently-read while they're actually reading it. Really, just as long as it gets put on the read shelf before the next month starts, it's fine with me.
Dana wrote: "I have a similar question. Is it okay to move books that are in read back to to-read for an upcoming theme?"
As long as a book is never removed from whatever previous theme shelves it's on, moving it from read to to-read isn't particularly detrimental.
Dana wrote: "Also, I noticed that the group bookshelf page was missing the "select multiple shelves" feature (you can do this on you own personal shelf page)."
Another one of the reasons I was hesitant to implement the shelves; their features are extremely limited in relation to individual account shelves, which is certainly understandable--the staff have far more important things on their mind than such a minor feature, especially right now--but still fairly frustrating. It would seem to me that the shelves are optimized not for more creative uses, but for simplicity in a "Our book club is reading this, then we're reading this" kind of set up. Great for the "normal" book club, but not for us.
Melissa wrote: "So all the books are put on the shelves instead of making a post about them? Or am I really confused."Shelves are just an extra feature. We're definitely keeping the What We're Reading thread and individual discussion threads. This is just an option that people can use to complement the threads, if they choose to do so. :)
While I agree that the group multi-shelf thing is a minor feature, it doesn't make sense to me that it wouldn't have been implemented from the start if you can have additional shelves, besides the three main ones. Oh well.
Amara wrote: "Melissa wrote: "So all the books are put on the shelves instead of making a post about them? Or am I really confused."Shelves are just an extra feature. We're definitely keeping the What We're R..."
Group shelves, confuse me so I think I'll stay out of them and just stick with the threads. From the way I'm reading they seem to be a lot of work and I don't know that I'll have time for adding and moving them around so much. Thank you for all your hard work though!
Dana wrote: "While I agree that the group multi-shelf thing is a minor feature, it doesn't make sense to me that it wouldn't have been implemented from the start if you can have additional shelves, besides the ..."It kind of makes me wonder if user shelves were originally like the group shelves with such limited features, then the staff only went through the trouble of adding the new features to the infinitely more popular user shelves...? But then again, I've only been here for a bit of a year, so I've no idea. *shrug*
Melissa wrote: "Group shelves, confuse me so I think I'll stay out of them and just stick with the threads. From the way I'm reading they seem to be a lot of work and I don't know that I'll have time for adding and moving them around so much. Thank you for all your hard work though!"
If you think there's anything I can do to help reduce your confusion, let me know! :)
Amara wrote: "It kind of makes me wonder if user shelves were originally like the group shelves with such limited features, then the staff only went through the trouble of adding the new features to the infinitely more popular user shelves...? But then again, I've only been here for a bit of a year, so I've no idea. *shrug*"That's possible. With my somewhat limited programming experience, I know that once you have a feature implemented once, it is typically much easier to implement it again somewhere else. Maybe that isn't the case here.
Hopefully this group becomes so popular that it will move up on their to-do list! Ah, wishful thinking :)
Will the number of books on the monthly theme shelves and the personal shelves be populated at some point? Currently only the to read, read, and currently reading shelves have totals.
Linda C wrote: "Will the number of books on the monthly theme shelves and the personal shelves be populated at some point? Currently only the to read, read, and currently reading shelves have totals."The totals on group shelves are bugged. No idea when a fix will be implemented, unfortunately. :(
Melissa wrote: "Amara wrote: "Melissa wrote: "So all the books are put on the shelves instead of making a post about them? Or am I really confused."Shelves are just an extra feature. We're definitely keeping th..."
I agree--it's a good idea but I'm just going to keep on reading!
The main page is a bit deceptive now, with some group members' choices showing as the monthly reads. I wish they only showed on the "bookshelf" page. Does that bother anyone else?
@Tina: I thought showing group members' choices is the main purpose of the new feature. Isn't it?
Being able to show group member's reading choices and the various statistics involved is definitely the major point of the bookshelves, yes.But I do agree with Tina; if I had my way, the poll would be at the very top of the page while the challenges and bookshelves would be moved down/elsewhere. Unfortunately, like I've said before, the mechanics of groups have never been fleshed out to my tastes. I would definitely like to see them improved in the near future.
But, of course, staff is dealing with a few crises of varying degrees right now, so I completely understand why poorly optimized groups wouldn't even make it on their radar. But it is fairly frustrating to be forced to make do with a system that doesn't give me the options I need to optimize the main page. :/
I have a quick question:If I've read the same book as some other members & I go to switch it from "currently reading" to "read" ... will that alter what the book is doing on the other people's shelves also?
If any moderators of other groups would like to let me know about any tricks and/or features of group bookshelves, please do as I'm basically feeling around in the dark when it comes to learning how to optimize their usefulness. ;)
I'll be announcing a trial run of this feature in tomorrow's Theme Announcement newsletter.