Chapter 4

Now that I've talked about some of the technologies I use or have used to connect with others, let me related it all back to the 'enchanted bookshelf' that I call the internet. The vast, never ending, shelf of books and people who enjoy books, available all the time.

I have always enjoyed reading, and maybe had a friend or 2 that read as much as I do. The issue that would come up is that we didn't always read the same books or the same type of books. When I was younger, that wasn't much of an issue, but now it comes up a bit. I have one friend that reads a lot, and she reads a whole lot of different books that I'd never pick up.

This brings me back to the internet. But first, I need to explain something - it was Harry Potter that first lead me to the bookshelf. I hadn't purchased any of the books until after I had seen the first 3 movies. The first 1 had me hooked, but I waited. I hadn't READ any until I moved from philadelphia to harrisburg, by this time I had the first 6 books and plenty of time to read them. So I started with book 1 and read through 3, then I saw movie 4 at the IMAX (so awesome!), and then read books 4 through 6. I was hooked from book 1, paragraph 1. When I was out of books, and after I had talked to a friend of mine about all the books, I went to the internet to search.

I was not new to the internet, not by any means. But what I found 'out there' when I googled "Harry Potter" kind of floored me. As you may guess, I found A LOT! I looked through A LOT! Some was good, some not so much, books, movies, actors, directors, theories, etc, the list goes on, EVERYTHING related came up. (Google is a discussion for another time).

I have 2 main harry potter bookmarks, sites I go to at least 3 times a week. mugglenet.com and The Leaky Cauldron. These sites have news sections, image galleries, discussion boards, link library, downloads like wallpaper or buddy icons, just LOTS of stuff all in one place. They are both amazing sites with amazing webmasters.

These sites have affiliated podcasts (kinda like radio talk shows that you download). These are the greatest things EVER. People who record a show talking about Harry Potter - the books, the movies, prior to book 7 theories, news in the harry potter 'fandom', respond to listener email or voice mail, and lots of other stuff. They even went on tour and did live podcasts during the months just before the book 7 release. Both have extremely talented casts.

The idea of fandom isn't new to me, but just how vast Harry Potter's fandom is was just shocking. Its like Star Wars and Star Trek (I guess, i'm not into star wars or star trek). Conventions, fan sites, fan gatherings, etc.. its amazing. The internet makes this SO much easier! You can join a forum and discuss the books with people from other countries, or people right down the street. My next search, maybe for my next post, is to have some HP blogs to link to. I'm sure they are out there.

But its not just Harry Potter and fan sites. Libraries are making their catalogs available online, as well as a way to reserve or renew items. Library systems allow users to reserve a book from on branch and pick it up at another. PSU's University Library system makes the affiliated databases available as well as a catalog.

Sites like Amazon, and store chains that have websites, make purchasing books as easy as clicking.

Some books are available to read online.

Books are more available now than they have ever been before. As well as a meeting ground for people to talk about them.