I would like to introduce you to some wonderful websites.
I looked through some of the resources, which were proposed in each category.
Book Program Resources
LitLovers is an an excellent online source for literature lovers. It`s a great site, if you want to make your own book club. You can find there 10 basic steps how to start and how to run the book club.
I personally liked this site for many reasons. Its gives you idea, in simple way, how to start and run a book club. This also has a good collection of popular books and also maintain book reviews for book club members.
Besides it is a good idea to organize a literary club in the Window on America, because it will include both books as an inseparable part of the library itself and dissemination of the information about the USA what is one of the key functions of the American Corner.
Kidsreads.com
Kidsread.com http://www.kidsreads.com/ .
There are a lot of information about authors and the books they wrote: new books, coming soon, books into movies and so on.
eBooks
Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and continues to inspire the creation of eBooks. This collection is available free of cost and no registration is required. Over 100,00 e-books are available through this project.
Project Gutenberg has the facility of both searching and browsing e-books. We can browse by Author, Title, Language, or recently posted. Similarly, we Can Search books by Author, Title, and Subject.
There are other important and useful features which add beauty to the Project such Bookshelves.
It is an alternative to the on-site licensed online databases. You can access anytime and anywhere virtually.
Most of all I like the system of reading online and the system of borrowing the books in it, it sounds and looks like I come to the library, borrow a book and then return it but virtually.
The best media that offers audio books, online courses, language lessons, movies, and eBooks.
This can be useful for activities in me Window on America center.
Audio Books
LibriVox provides free access to audiobooks. There are several options for listening. However, We need to install MP3 Player on our PC to listen these audiobooks.
LibriVox has many features like other sites. It has its own well established Catalog which has indexed all the audiobooks. we can subscribe to its podcast to receive RSS Feeds about LibriVox updated contents.
Facebook Applications
Visual Bookshelf is a Facebook application. This applications has been developed by Livingsocial.com which is a social discovery and cataloging network that allows people to review and share their favorite movies, books, games, music, restaurants and beer.
I have installed this application on American Corner (Dnipropetrovsk) Facebook Page.
I find is a very useful social networking tool like Librarything. It has many features, we can search books, share it with friend, we make recommendations and a lot more. We can search by Title, Author, and ISBN. I have added some books to my favorite collection.
I have also installed this application -
WorldCat
on American Corner (Dnipropetrovsk) Facebook Page.
http://apps.facebook.com/worldcat/
They can be used when it is necessary to inform members of the literary club about the book which will be discussed or to recommend them to read some books or to write a review.
The resource is incredibly rich, and time is needed to evaluate its potential.
The Workshop in Lviv for the Ukrainian American Corners heads (September, 2011) will be dedicated to the use of e-books in everyday activities.
