Thing 11- Library Thing

1. Take the Library Thing tour around LibraryThing and then create an account...
2. Add a least 5 books to your library. You find a title, click add to your library, then type in your subjects (called tags in LibraryThing) and save.
3. Blog about your use of LibraryThing. Be sure to link to your LibraryThing catalog on your blog. How popular were your books? Did you find any discussions about your favorites?

I signed up for Library Thing some time ago, but I never took to it. I'm not sure why--perhaps because I'm too lazy to catalog all of my books without serious incentive. It's one of those rainy day activities I'd like to do in theory, along with organize my warranties and go through my recipe clippings. On the other hand, I am an active user of paperbackswap.com, in which I enter books I'm willing to trade with others for "credits." I use paperbackswap.com because I can get rid of books I no longer want while racking up points for books that I do want. LibraryThing seems to emphasize the social networking aspect of book reading more than PBS does.

Still, with an inquisitive mind, I explored Library Thing and was impressed by its robust functionality. I liked:

• the different display formats for your library--list view/cover view, various display styles


• tag clouds--and I was intrigued by the "tag mirror," which shows how other users tag your books


• the search and statistics pages


• the idea of an "Unsuggester"


• the fact that I could point my mobile phone to my library if I knew how to do so

I didn't like:

• how long it took to import data from PBS. My measly few dozen titles took about 1/2 hour to upload in the queue.


• the help page--a little slow and I couldn't figure out how to change tags for multiple books at once.


• it's a little heavy on the social networking for my taste...I would use this more as a personal reading journal than a site where I post my opinions to the world, but hey, that's just me.

The books I've been reading lately are mostly light and fluffy, and hence, quite popular among the bestseller readers. One or two historical fiction books were lower on the popularity scale, but the vast majority are the kinds of things I expect sporadic readers like me might turn to for a fix. My library of light reading since 2007 is displayed in the left sidebar and here at this link: