What is Shelfari?
Shelfari is a social cataloging website that allows users to organize, archive, and share information about their book collections with others. Launched in 2006, Shelfari enables book lovers to document the books they own or have read, write reviews, create custom bookshelves to categorize their libraries, join online book clubs focused on specific genres or authors, and connect with a community of fellow bibliophiles.
Key features of Shelfari include:
- Personal book cataloging - Users can search for books and add them to their personal shelf listing books in their collection or books they wish to read.
- Reviews and ratings - Members can assign star ratings to books and author pages and write reviews to share with the Shelfari community.
- Custom bookshelves - Individualized virtual shelves can be created to classify and group books by genre, subject matter, reading status, or any other user-defined categories.
- Groups and discussions - The site contains groups focused on particular book-related subjects to foster discussion. There is also a social feed to interact with other members.
- Author profiles - Shelfari features expanded author pages including author bios and bibliographies to provide more background.
- Quizzes and trivia - Members can test their literary knowledge through book or author-themed quizzes and trivia questions created by the Shelfari community.
Acquired by Amazon in 2008, Shelfari utilizes wiki functionality to enable a collaborative approach for members to build out content related to books, authors, and more. The service aimed to enhance the online book discovery process and offer a platform for connecting readers.
Goodreads, LibraryThing, Anobii, BookLikes, Leafmarks, Stack.app, MyMovieHits, Readernaut, weRead, Glose, bookish are some alternatives to Shelfari.