Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Thing#11 Thing This: LibraryThing

I lost my reading diary - a book I picked up at ALA where I record what I've read and what I want to read. I was thinking of buying another one at Barnes and Noble, then I discovered this Thing.

Here's the link to the last six books I read plus four of my favorites: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/bconkin

I found a spot in LibraryThing that allows you to display your books in your blog. I coped the code to do this below, but as you can see, it didn't work. Or perhaps it doesn't work on a mac in Firefox, which is where I am now.
EDIT - It didn't display the books under preview post, but here they are after I published:



I haven't figured out how to search other people's libraries yet. I feel a little awkward doing that - it feels a bit like going through a stranger's underwear drawer.

I remember in library school that we talked about how the web is so unmanageable because everyone and their dog posts their own things there. I wonder if LibraryThing isn't online clutter. I can use it, but I don't think it is necessary to tell the world the last six books I read and four of my favorites.

I wish I could merchandise my LibraryThing. I suppose that's what the tags are for, though I'd like to rearrange the covers. While there are many ways to display the list, there is only one way to display the covers.

I like LibraryThing, but would like it a lot more if I could keep my library private.

2 comments:

Dale said...

I love LibraryThing, though mostly just for me. I have made one friend, a real friend in life not just a social site "friend" with someone who compared libraries. The main thing I like it for is to allow me to quickly check to see if I own a book. I only add books I own, not books I've read, which I keep track of on Facebook. And mostly, I do read books from the library.

Any way, what I wanted to say is that you should be able to arrange books and covers in many different ways. You can choose "list view" or "cover view" and then arrange or sort in many ways.

By the way, I add Dewey call numbers to my tags. Having worked with Dewey for more than half my life, I find it convenient to check quickly for, say a book classed in 598 and not get the 636 results, though either could be tagged "birds".

Barb Conkin said...

I discovered how to re-arrange my covers, thanks! I wish I could just drag and drop to have them displayed in a visually interesting way.

I was a freelance cataloger for a few small Canadian non-profits before I moved to Queens. All my clients wanted original cataloging, largely because their collections were so specialized.

For most collections, however, Dewey is very handy. SLJ has an editorial in this month's issue criticizing a school that did away with Dewey. I read an artcle a few months ago, I forget where, about a public library that did away with Dewey. Yikes!