I really like LibraryThing. I saw Tim Spalding at Computers in Libraries and ALA and the product he's come out with for libraries is very cool, which puts LibraryThing tags over top of the library catalog--pre-tagging, if you will. As social data on books goes, LibraryThing has a huge database and I think the tags are pretty valuable.
I've been wanting to catalog my whole personal library forever and I think I'll use LibraryThing....but I don't want to start without knowing that I'll be able to finish. :-) So I've never started. Because yes, I own that many books. They're double-stacked on my bookshelves and on the top of them and on the floor next to them. The library books don't even have a place--they're stacked next to the bed and the couch. Of course, I managed to catalog 15 books of my top favorite books in less than 15 minutes, so maybe if I took a whole weekend....
Other than Tim's product for libraries, I'm not really sure about a regular library's use of LibraryThing. Might be good for small or unusual collections, so that people who are on LibraryThing could find out who has those books. Might also be a good place for searching for unusual items such as small-run genealogy books and putting patrons in contact with the people who have them. Makes for an even larger library than WorldCat....
My LibraryThing (also in the sidebar):
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2 comments:
I agree that LibraryThing is pretty cool, but I also think it is fairly limited. I tried to use LibraryThing to catalog my enormous Christmas music CD collection. It was sort of useless for that unfortunately.
I'm excited about this LibraryThing. I haven't gotten that far yet. But, I have a huge collection of books in boxes in my shed. About 2000 books.
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