LibraryThing

I am going to start this post and add to it as I get more time to investigate LibraryThing. It's pretty obvious that this is a 'rich' site, especially for book lovers. My initial reaction is that for a depository of books I much prefer GoodReads - simpler, and not so cluttered. But I can see there's more to LT than just bookshelves. To Be Continued...

OK. I am hooked. Library Thing is WAY COOL. I know that I will be visiting this site often. There's so much to see, and do. I am just going to have to put my blinders on, though, as it would be easy to get overwhelmed by all those things to see and do.

My comment about GoodReads being simpler and not so cluttered still stands. LibraryThing's collection/bookshelf abilities are much more robust. I don't think I have enough time to re-enter everything I have added to my GoodReads account, but if someone is looking for a more detailed way to catalog their books, LT would be a good choice. I found the connections to others' shelves very intriguing; I entered a book from a rather obscure mystery writer from Australia, and the next time I signed on, there were listings for others who have his books on their shelves. Cool.

I even signed up for the Early Reviewers program; too late for August, but I wanted to try it out for September. "I See Dead People's Books" was very interesting. Mark Twain is one of my favorites and I enjoyed reading the history of his collection, including the links to where some of it now resides. And I have been to his home in Hartford, which BTW, is a fascinating place with a great tour.

Librarians Who LibraryThing wasn't as interesting to me; I think it's just too big for the time I have to surf/wander around.

In the groups, I stumbled upon one called Book Mooching, and got a really good posting of how to do a hollowed out book - something for a teen program, maybe. I liked the author reviews, and the section on what people are reading - all very good stuff.

It took me awhile to find MARCThing; I had to search for it in help. I read the blog posting, but I have to admit that for this kind of tech stuff I need hands on demonstrations in order to understand what it actually does. It sounds useful, but I just can't say I totally understand it.

I found ISBN Check and ThingLang more easily, after I read on the NT23 blog that someone else was having trouble, and where they were. I read what they were, but I didn't get how you would go about using them, i.e. where the functions actually resided on LT. Maybe I will figure that out at a later time. They seemed very useful to me.

It would be fun for a library's staff to share their home libraries with each other. I am not sure how efficient it would be to LT in any way for a library's collection. I would love to attend a workshop where that is all laid out and explained, so I would have enough time to concentrate on it.

In the end, I think LT is a winner.