I Heart LibraryThing (Exercise #11)

I've always wanted to try LibraryThing, so I was really excited to see this was one of the exercises. For a long time now I've been wanting to make a list of all my books because I have this paranoia that all my books are going to be burned up in a fire. This way I have a list of the books that can't be destroyed as long as the Internet lasts because I can access it anywhere I am. Assuming of course that I can get all my books into the program. I need to get one of those RFID machines. I do like that I can put in the ISBN and get the exact edition that I own, though I've noticed it doesn't always come up with the exact one that I have. And it can search the Library of Congress or Amazon. At first I tried to stump the site by putting in obscure books and foreign language books, but they found everything. I like that you can add your own tags but that you can also used LC or Dewey Call Numbers. Plus you can add comments about the book to make it really personalized. I've enjoyed playing around with different ways to organize and display my books.

The social aspect of the site is really fun. You can see what other people own the same books you own, you can share your catalog with friends who are also users of the program, and you can join different groups. I thought it was funny that the largest group is the "Librarians who LibraryThing" group. I was really amused by the Unsuggester option under Suggestions. Basically you put in a title of a book that you own or have read, and the Unsuggester tells you books that you probably won't like by showing you the"books least likely to share a library with the book you suggest." I find though that my tastes are so electic that often I also liked the books that they didn't suggest.

I think this program has some really fun features that perhaps library catalogs could consider. I know many catalogs are starting to show pictures of covers. I think things like that are a step in the right direction. Library catalogs of course are more complicated than most people's personal library collections and the need to be precise is so much more important. If only there was a way to incorporate user-friendly things like tags without losing out on the efficient systems we already have.

Unfortunately I haven't had that much time to add more titles, but here is my library. I'm going to try to see if I can get the widget to work on my blog.