The purpose of this master’s thesis is to examine virtual reading groups, and which meaning the users perceive that the virtual reading groups offer. In addition, the study inquires which details can be improved to further amend the needs and wants among the users of virtual reading groups. Through these outlines, it is discussed how libraries and librarians can make use of virtual reading groups as a resource. The study is based upon qualitative interviews, consisting of asynchronous e-mail interviews with a total of sixteen members in two different virtual reading groups. The theoretical frames are taken from theories within the research field of reading, ideas about virtual communities and identity construction. The result of the essay shows that the virtual reading groups seem to serve an important role as virtual arenas, where people can come together and discuss their common interest in reading and books. For some of the users, virtual reading groups have a social quality, but it is not a capacity that all of the users experience or even aim at with their membership. Moreover, details that can be improved are said to be the layout on the sites, solutions of technical problems and marketing. For libraries, virtual reading groups can be a useful complement to other services that they offer, since it is a free resource that makes it possible for librarians to meet their patrons and to reach out to new groups through an access on the Internet. / Uppsatsnivå: D

This master thesis examines online reading groups with swedish participants. The aim is, by way of introduction, to investigate what kind of online reading groups that exist and how they work. The overall question of the thesis is: how do a conversation about books on the Internet look like? The theory used is Grounded Theory and this is a methodology which has influenced the hole structure of the study. Grounded Theory apply that issues and hypothesis must be created from the collected material, and the author collected for this reason material in the form of survey answers, email-conversations, blogmaterial and articles to draw up exact issues based on this material. The material was sorted into four different categories; social reading, reading fellowship, virtual freedom and anonymity and the issues were formulated according to this categories. The results of the study shows that conversations about books exists in many places on the Internet, such as on blogs and on book forums. Online reading group as a term made it difficult to include such other conversations in the study even though they worked almost as reading groups. Online reading groups is according to the author just one part of a big reading movement on the web. Another result of the study was that it seemed as members of online reading groups has changed their way of how to discuss books, meaning they discuss the reading experience not only after they have read the book but also while they are reading. This tendency is in this thesis explained as a result of the everyday use of social media, where people are now used to update as often as several times per day. The term virtual freedom includes the freedom to take part in a conversation independent of time and geography, but also a freedom to have the possibility to stay anonymous. Virtual freedom and anonymity is discussed by means of the term fellowship, and fellowship is discussed by means of the term social reading which is the core variable of this thesis.