Tutorial 6

Tutorial Six: The internet and online communities

Either search online for a community which interest you or choose one of the provided online communities to investigate. Make sure your selected a community that comprises some form of online forum, discussion page or chat room. You may also wish to see if your community has a Wikipedia entry.

Provide the web address and the name of the community you are investigating Book Crossing http://www.bookcrossing.com/

What is the brief or focus of this community At Book Crossing, you can register any book you have on the site, and then set the book free to travel the world and find new readers. You register on the site as a member and can leave your book anywhere, on a park bench or in a coffee shop. Then by fate anyone can then pick up your book and read your message in the book and enter it onto the website. You can watch your book being traced all over the world even. The focus of this community is loving books and sharing them.

What services are provided? How interactive is this site? How can people contribute? As a member of book crossing you can make announcements, ask questions, share book release techniques, rave about new books and authors, chit-chat, and in general make friends with like-minded readers from around the world in the online forums. Another service is email discussion groups where you can express your opinions and views and post ideas and beta-versions of various Book Crossing projects, to get some valued feedback. You can also start an official crossing zone. Pick a favourite location such as a classroom, a park bench, a bookshop to release and find books on a regular basis.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on why people choose to contribute to this community. What is it they are seeking? People choose to use this online community to connect with other people who have an interest in books and sharing. There is the excitement of connecting with other people all over the world with tracking a book of yours or finding someone else’s book, and sharing some views on it through the online community.

Cut and paste an example of the type of topics being discussed (you may have to provide a context to your excerpt). Posted by silverpepper (164/157) 6 days ago (5/29/2008 3:16:51 PM BX time) "Talk Before Sleep" by Elizabeth Berg - I need some help with a poem in the book This book deals with cancer and female friendships. There is a poem in the book that I'd like to pass on to the daughter of a friend of mine who recently died of cancer. I inadvertently released the book before I copied the poem. Can anyone out there help me find this poem? It would be greatly appreciated. Posted by waternixie (403/184) 1 wk ago (5/27/2008 2:32:07 PM BX time) This was a book I caught... ...not a book I had released. But I found it on the bargain rack of a used bookstore in Seattle in 2007 and bought it and read it. It had been registered someplace in the midwest(Nebraska, I think) in Nov. 2004. How it got where it was is a mystery, but I'm sure that the original bookcrosser had given up on hearing anything about it. As far as books I register go, the worst culprits seem to be people in my meetup group who take home books and don't journal them for many months. Posted by retc (412/368) 6 days ago (5/29/2008 9:45:59 PM BX time) The Memory Keeper's Daughter Just finished this book for my book club. It was absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend it. It was about a woman who has twins, a girl with Down's and a boy with no disabilities, and the father gives the baby with Down's away while the mother is under ether and tells mom the baby died. It was really riveting.

Considering material presented during the course and make comment on the potential ethical issues that may arise in this community e.g. lack of identity and accountability. These online communities can create a great place for people to connect, unite and share ideas and parts of their lives together. There is a sense of belonging and contribution on offer. However they also can be misused. These misuses can be anything from online criminals to the problem of people spending too much time in a virtual world and too little in reality. Adult material could be left where a child may find it and there could be security issues around where you leave your book e.g. an airport. The validity of the information being shared can be in question and copyrights can be misused.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on the benefits this community holds over traditional notions of community e.g. communities reliant on geographic proximity The benefits of this online community include a sense of belonging, a fun occupation, a connection with others and the world and the excitement of fate, you never quite know where your book may end up. It’s open to anyone and is relatively easy to learn to navigate around. It would be really good for those who may be housebound due to illness or injury, being able to connect with other adults with the similar interest.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment what this community lacks or can not provide which traditional communities can. This community of book crossing while entertaining and informative is mostly up to chance. Whether you find a book or not is up to fate. The community relies on people being responsible about where and how they choose to leave their books and can’t really control this.