The Sunday Salon - Riffle Books

from www.rifflebooks.com

I tend to avoid any new social media sites since they appear with such regularity. I liked the sound of Riffle
and decided to try it out.  I was looking for ease of use, integration with my current PLN (professional learning network), and where it fits with sites I already use such as Twitter, Goodreads, and Pinterest.

Riffle - to turn hastily; flutter and shift: to riffle a stack of letters; to riffle through a book.

Do I want to encourage anyone to get through a book quickly? No. My goal is to get people into reading. To savor books. To highlight and comment and come back for more. As a reader, I want to discuss books with people. As a librarian, my job depends on me deepening the love of reading in students and asking them to riffle through a books seems contrary to that mission.

Does Riffle add anything new to my current social media favorites?

I enjoyed adding lists on Riffle, it was easy and fast.  I also love the quality of the book covers. It was almost like Pinterest for books. Almost. You can like but you can't repin or comment. Since you can't comment, it's very limited in terms of the social aspect of reading. Liking is not a conversation. When opening Riffle, you can choose to display "updates" in a row or grid, by books or lists or both.  Unfortunately, unlike Goodreads, I'm not sure if this is a chronological update. I'm only following nine people, but since Riffle is showing you the book cover or the list title and they are a good size, it limits what you can see. If it's a book cover, you look underneath to see if the person recommends it or is reading it. If it's a book list - my favorite aspect of Riffle - you can mouse over for a description of the type of books on the list. The good think about Riffle is you can tweet your lists.

What now?

Riffle is out of Beta and anyone can join. You can sign up via email, Facebook, or Twitter. When I signed up, you could only use your Facebook account, which I don't really use for bookstuff. I would have preferred just to use the email address that's associated with my blog. I only have a few lists on Riffle right now. I'm thinking in future, I'll blog about the list and either link to it or embed it.

Are you on Riffle? What do you think?

My Riffle Lists

I Will Survive - Books to feed your (finishing of the) Hunger (Games)
Middle School Book Club - These are books we read or will read for different book clubs. We have grades 6 - 8
Seeing is Believing - Great graphic novels
Narrative Nonfiction - Books to help meet the Common Core initiative of increased nonfiction reading