LibraryThing: your online library
In the latest issue of PC Magazine (September 5, 2006) I discovered LibraryThing, a place to catalog every book you own. It’s more than just an online list of your books, however, it’s also a community where you can easily communicate with other people who share the same interests as you. The ability to tag books with keywords makes it easy to find a book pertaining to a very specific subject. Whether you have a favorite author, a topic, or even a character, you can probably find a books tagged for your subject. From there, you can peruse a user’s library, or send them a message to get some recommendations.
Entering your books is simple: using the book’s title, author, or ISBN, LibraryThing can automatically search Amazon (in several countries), The Library of Congress, or libraries in several dozen major universities, and that’s just in the United States. Find your book on the list (which is typically very accurate) and click the title, and you’re done. In the rare instance that LibraryThing can’t locate your book, you can easily add it manually. In addition to tagging your entries, you can also rate them, write reviews (both for books in your library and others), and even include the dates when you started and finished reading a book.
Check out my library, and feel free to send over some suggestions on new reading. I’m always up for a good book.