Who Is Cowtown Pattie?

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I was Lillie Langtry in another life, and might have a crush on Calamity Jane.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

That Library Thing

Anyone have experience with this little online literary jewel of a site?

The Library Thing


Better question - should I be cataloging my own personal books? I really don't have that many, but if I start now, then it won't be such a daunting task, given that our propensity to add to our library is ever-growing.

The site allows listings by author, title or even the ISBN. LibraryThing makes it really easy:

You don't have to type everything in. LibraryThing gets all the right data from Amazon.com and over 75 libraries around the world, including the Library of Congress.

Just click on the book to add it to your catalog.

Also at the site, you can join forums, group chats, and it even has an "Unsuggester" which "will give you humorous recommendations of books you probably wouldn't enjoy."

Hmmm.

Do I want the world to be peeking into my dusty, unorganized and knicknacked library shelves (the same thing I do when visiting other people's houses)?

Depending on your take on it, I suppose the site could be an extremely clever use of technology, or just another insidious creep into your personal space (and probably both).

Did I mention LibraryThing has a blog widget that lets other folks see what's on your shelves?

Oh, LibraryThing,
I think I love you
You make everything
Groovey...LibraryThing

5 comments:

Annie in Austin said...

Pattie, quite a few of the Garden bloggers are on Library Thing, so I have thought about it, but that's all - just thought.

If we had a real winter where we were totally stuck inside for ages I might be bored enough to do it, but there's always too much to keep up with in Austin.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

Anonymous said...

Haven't heard of this, but sent a link to possible interested family member acquainted with "things library-related."

Hokule'a Kealoha said...

this is cool and I am bookmarking it. I have nearly 2000 volumes if I start now I will finish cataloging by 2020 date of my retirement!

DarkoV said...

CP,
I tried this site out and after inputting about 70 books, I discovered that the FREE feature of listing/entering your info runs out after 100 (or was it 150) books. Unless they've changed the limit number, this wouldn't work for me. Yeah, Yeah! I'm cheap; I even forgot waht the cahrge was, although I know there was one charge for annual and another for lifetime. And when they offer Lifetime..... you start wondering how long that lifetime will be. It'd be a shame to enter a lot of info (and spend a lot of time doing it) and then have the site die due to lack of members or effort from the data site.

Hope I'm not throwing cold water on this site. I think the idea is fabulous, especially the sharing aspect, but....that's a lot of keypunching without the capability of backing it up on your hard drive in case the site dies.

Anonymous said...

I see that you can use the CueCat to scan in the data on your books.

Remember those? I had a couple of them when they were being handed out for free. I don't think I kept them. Did you?

I agree with DarkoV. If I went to the trouble of entering all this information I would want to own a copy of the data.

Bill
prairie point