For the amateur librarians among us, we encourage you all to take a look at the LibraryThing website, where participants can create and customize an online "catalog" of the books they own and/or have read. Readers wishing to sign up for a free account can then add up to 200 books (or lots more for a relatively small fee), including information about authors, titles and ISBNs. So far, it sounds like just a simple list, right?
The best part of LibraryThing is that your annotated catalog can then be shared with other LibraryThing users, via keyword and other types of searching. Add subject "tags" to your books and reviews, that will help you and other users track information about the books you've cataloged. Want to rate or review the items on your virtual "bookshelf"? Go for it! Then go read other users's reviews or comments. Join in shared book communities and swap literary stories with other LibraryThing afficionados. A quarter of a million users have joined up already, with over 17+ million books "cataloged". Go find out which books have shown up in the largest number of users' collections. See which books have had the most reviews submitted, both positive and negative. Swap reading suggestions with other voracious readers -- we entered "Centennial" by James Michener, and received back several dozen recommendations of similar titles, both from the LibraryThing database, but also from Amazon.
Visit the Zeitgeist page, and see what the most popular authors in LibraryThing are, and also what authors themselves have joined LibraryThing! LibraryThing is one of the premier examples of the cross-over between libraries, book-lovers and online social networking. So...check it out!
And if you sign up to participate, drop us a note here to let us know who you are and point us toward your bookshelf!
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2 comments:
I love LibraryThing! I have been using it for books that I have read since joining the group. There is always tons to read and ideas on next books. The only thing I wish is that there was a difference in books read by members and books they want to read. If I listed all the books I wanted to read but haven't it would be the library card catalog.
I just joined this recently myself, and am finding it fun, after entering in my own books, to see what other books are in the collections of people who also own the ones I've put in. It's giving me good suggestions for other books to pursue...
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