After more than eight years of being a member of Shelfari community I logged to find this message.
The only thing that was missing was a loud wailing siren and the message above blinking in more brighter red tones.
I admit I got a bit panicked at first and after panic depression settled in…
I tried Goodreads years ago but I didn’t like it and I stayed on Shelfari for a reason.
I like the user friendly interface where I have my virtual bookshelf presented as a wooden bookshelf in the color of wood of my choosing.
I like the fact that there are just a few shelf categories which makes it look neat and uniform. I like how simple adding books and shelving them is in Shelfari.
Truth be told I have grown fond of the senior citizen user friendly ability to enlarge book covers on my shelves and I love how they look. In comparison Goodreads shelving looks bleak and tiny.
Just as reading is a personal activity so is this preferance to Shelfari. I read books for my own pleasure and I am not accustomed to this many types of online social interference the Goodreads community has to offer.
In fact it all makes me want to take a pen and paper for keeping track of my reading goals and statistics.
Initial interface and book categories remind me of paid databases I researched in for college. This is what makes them even more off-putting. The paranoid in me wants to shout that it all just clicks too close to giving out too much free information to companies that can use it for making profit. 
I know that this Shelfari ending has been in the coming for a few years. I’ve been expecting it trough announcements from Shelfari editors who were all saying goodbye one by one.
Learning my way trough the Goodreads will be slow and painful since I know what I’m missing. I’ve been trying to update form one platform to the other but there are too many books unaccounted for and too many reviews lost. These things don’t mater to anyone else but me and that makes me see just how much I relied on Shelfari. This is not the first time I’m trying to synchronize Shelfari and Goodreads. It grates on my nerves and makes a loving past-time activity into something painful and tiresome. The less painful solution seems to just stop trying to synchronize and delete all and start from zero.
I have few ideas of starting anew and it will probably be a long journey to place as safe and relaxing as Shelfari was to me.
anastasiaadamov 