LibraryThing

[lareinenoire]

A question to the flist at large--

I've been wanting to properly catalogue my books for at least several years now. Mainly because I really want to know what I have so I'll stop accidentally buying multiple copies of things I don't need (multiple copies of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Austen don't count), especially since my books are scattered in four different locations. I've been tempted by LibraryThing, but I'm a bit wary of having everything on the Internet where it could conceivably vanish.

(I'm also wary of the recommendation thing, as I spent too much money on books as it stands...::grin::)

So, to those people who use LibraryThing, is it worthwhile? Is there a way to save your catalogue to hard copy? And how do the free accounts work, as opposed to the paid accounts?

Comments

[naufiel.livejournal.com]

I too have been tempted by Library Thing (my excuse is that I currently don't need another project), so I've checked it out a little. As far as I can tell, the only difference between free and paid is that free has a limit of 200 books. Which I'll hit in a nanosecond. So until I can justify spending the money, I wait.

[lazy-neutrino.livejournal.com]

200! How is that any use to anybody?!

[cheshyre]

I don't LibraryThing, but I was at the Computers in Libraries conference at the start of the week. While I was chatting with Tim Spalding (founder of LT) somebody came up with a small black book to show Mr. Spalding -- it was the guy's LibraryThing catalog, printed and bound so he'd always have it on hand.

So, that suggests you can save your catalog to hardcopy. :)

BTW, see if you can't pick up a cheap barcode scanner -- since much of LT works based on ISBN, that'll make cataloging much easier -- or so I've heard.

[darth-kittius.livejournal.com]

I currently use LibraryThing only to keep track of the almost 200 books that I currently have at my parents house... I've found it ok. It does the job but what I don't like is that there are not fields for keeping track of where the book is (who's borrowing it, if it's at my parents or my place), etc.

I've flirted extensively with Readerware (http://www.readerware.com/rwFeat.html) because it's much more what I want. I'm trying to convince myself that $40 isn't really that much and it'll be way worth it in the long run. In the meantime, I've built myself an access database with most of the same fields as Readerware, which I like but can't look up information by bar code, so I have to manually enter everything. (Which is a pain when you have as many books as I do.)

Short story is, I like LibraryThing enough for the moment. But once I convince myself that $40 to catalog my library and keep track of everything isn't that much... then I'm going to buy Readerware.