Jeff Howe, a contributing editor for Wired Magazine and writer of the popular blog – Crowdsourcing, recently developed the idea of One Book, One Twitter. Inspired by “one book, one city” clubs, Howe posed the idea of an online book club that would hopefully pull in “zillions” of readers. Howe first proposed the idea on March 18^th, and began collecting book nominations from online participants. All nominated books had to be available around the world, translated into MANY languages, and of general interest to all. As of April 6^th, American Gods by Neil Gaiman was selected as the crowd favorite. Other popular nominations included Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Brave New World, Slaughterhouse Five, and Catch 22.

But, wait, not so fast… Voting isn’t over yet! By the end of this week, “judges” for the One Book, One Twitter club will be posting 4 other possible choices. Then, during the week of April 12^th, participants will be able to vote for one of the “judges” suggestions, or can select American Gods or one of the other popular nominations as their favorite. In all, voters will have ten books to choose from. No word yet as to when the winner will be announced, but we’ll be sure to update you as soon as we know!

 This is something libraries should get behind, and just maybe…help promote. Imagine the possibilities, and how cool is it that a huge group of people from around the world are being exposed to great works of literature? What a wonderful way to promote a love for reading, create a community made up of people from vastly different backgrounds—AND introduce people to a popular technology!

To get involved:

1) Get a Twitter account!

2) Search for hashtag #1b1t

3) Read posts, you’ll quickly discover where the group is with the whole process.

You may also learn more about One Book, One Twitter at Howe’s Crowdsourcing Blog: http://www.crowdsourcing.com/cs/.