Thing 17

I decided to explore Library Thing (http://www.librarything.com/home/UnderstandingJane), of course. Uh, librarian here. It's like cataloging all my bookmarks in Delicious; I could spend forever here listing all the books I've read! Anyway, I added a bunch of books. It's very easy to do. They come with pictures of the cover art...very nice. I rated them all, from 1 to 5 stars. I mostly stuck to books I've read or reread recently. There are so many more, but it would be an impossible task to make this a complete list. I think it's best just to add things as I read them.

I added children's books and adult books. I can add tags, like in Delicious, but I haven't yet. I guess it would help other people to search my library, but I don't care about that. Users can also write reviews for books (haven't done that either). Library Thing will make "clouds" of your authors and your tags. It's not very accurate for me because I randomly added some books from my favorite authors, but not all of their books. I wish in adding books I could select several at once from the results list, but it's a one-at-a-time deal. So, the back and forth limited how many I added.

Authors have libraries on Library Thing too. I chose a couple to add to my "favorite authors." There are too many favorites to choose from here too! For someone who loves to read, this could be a neverending task.

Library Thing will also show local bookstores and book events for you. However, Library Thing believes I live in Boston. I don't know where it got that idea. I perused my profile over and over and cannot find anything that specifies such a location.

In Library Thing, you can join groups. I joined a couple, but already have places online where I chat with people and don't really have time for more of that. Yet, the groups could be useful in the future if I need to pose a question to a specific group of readers.

Library Thing gives me recommendations of books to read. However, since I didn't take the time to add every single book by authors that I have read, the suggestions are mainly more books by authors that I have listed. I've already read the recommended books, I just didn't take the time to search them all out and add them.
I never have trouble finding new books to read. I actually get kind of annoyed when someone hands me a book to read that they own, so they want it back. So, I have to read it in a timely manner and return it to them and tell them what I think. I prefer to choose my own books. Most people who do this to me have taste that is very different from mine, and I don't enjoy what they hand me.

Library Thing could be a useful tool. I could keep an account with just children's books and my students could look to see what books I read and how I rated the books. I can't even imagine the amount of time it would take to set this up. Then students would need accounts too in order to look at mine. Oy. It would be more useful to me professionally for connecting with other children's librarians. However, I see myself using it more in my personal life.