Lib Thing! You Make My Heart Sing!

Thing #11 is to play with Library Thing. It basically lets you catalog the books you own, and it can do such things as recommend other books you might like or help you find other people who like the same books that you do.

I think the concept is awesome, and I know some folks who would absolutely love it, and I'll make sure that they already know about it. (Among my friends, I tend to be on late end of technological advances.) But for me, I'm not sure Library Thing is that helpful, for two main reasons.

One, the purpose is to catalog the books you own. There are lots and lots of books I love, but I only own a fraction of them. I am limited in funds for purchasing and space for storing, of course, but I also, wonder of wonders, get the majority of from my local public library. Hey, somebody's gotta keep us in business! So if people are trying to recommend books to me or connect me with others based solely on the books cataloged on Library Thing, the information they would be using would be incomplete.

The second reason is that I don't read, nor do I own, that many "grown up books." Most of the books I own have an intended audience of readers with ages in the single digits, or those who have only recently made it to double digits. On the other hand, there may actually be others out there like me, so maybe Library Thing will turn out to be great for me after all. Either way, I think the idea of it is super cool.

At this writing, I've only put in about dozen titles, but you can find my own personal catalogue here. And I did join the Library Thing group for librarians!