Thing 14: Liberry Thang

It appears that WordPress doesn’t allow JavaScript in their sidebar displays, so for now, I’m going to have to provide a link to my LibraryThing profile here. How old-fashioned! Sheesh!

The free account only allows you to enter 200 books. When I created an account on LibraryThing two years ago I spent a lot of time entering books from my book journal, and reached my limit waaaay to quickly. It wasn’t the right tool for me to remember what I had read over the last few years. I deleted that account a long time ago, but was happy to create a new account to reintroduce myself to LibraryThing.

And there are features that I really enjoy! They have made it significantly easier to add books, tags and reviews. They have collaborated with about 6 neighborhood bookshops to share reviews, Powell’s being one of them. It is very easy to add books to your library because they use Amazon’s huge database, and the records include cataloging data that I recognize from the library world. (I think it is hilarious that you can search by LC Card Number, though!). And, with any online book sharing tool, the covers are right there, which is incredibly important. OPACs need to be making covers available, and they are.

How would I use this at work? I could add my profile to my business card, maybe. HCL has many tools, including BookSpace, that I use to share book recommendations with patrons. There are a few patrons that I have who want to know my specific book recommendations, and I would feel comfortable sharing my profile with them in addition to the many online tools available through the library’s website. I use The VisualBookshelf in Facebook — but I don’t know how many people look at my reading habits there.

My only question about LibraryThing is this: why are they still in beta after so many years? And, why is this considered an online productivity tool? Maybe it is more productive to keep track of my books online, than in my paper-bound book journal. The thing is … I have kept that updated consistently. I haven’t kept up with any online attempts to record my books.