Sunday, July 26, 2009

My One True Love...and Monday Musing!

Wow, these weeks go by so fact, don't they. So, another Monday, another musing, from Just One More Page,

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about online book sites…

Do you have an account with an online book database site (LibraryThing, Shelfari, GoodReads etc)? If so, do you have a preference? Do you use it for - your own record keeping? finding new books to read? social networking?


Well, my dear readers, if you check out my blog on a regular basis...like every week....you will know the answer to that one, since every Tuesday I post on Tuesday Thinger, a meme about...Library Thing.

I will not bore you with another post about my beloved Library Thing. But I do love it. Because...now I don't want to start a fight here...but of the various database sites out there, Library Thing is without question the best. Oh, I can hear the mumblings from a few of you. Certainly you are free to disagree. But folks...how can I say this ...if you do not agree, you are just wrong. lol... ;-)

I have told the story of how I started on Library Thing. I bought a copy of a book, only to come home and find I had the exact same edition of the same book sitting on my shelf. It seemed I needed to get a hold on my books, find some way to tract what I owned and what I read, so I Googled and the rest is history.

Now, I did check out some other sites. Shelfari was too slick for me...sort of like LT Lite. GoodReads..well, I liked that enough to sign up and try it, but when I started using them both, Library Thing won my mind and heart.
To me the format is just cleaner and more flexible to how I want to use the site. And that, I find, is ultimately the difference. Library Thing is about how I want to use it. And I love that the site, while having almost 800,000 members and with "Books cataloged, 41,847,555" according to the "Zeitgeist Overview" page, feels small.
The guy that started it, who owns the majority, Tim Spalding, is always around, posting in various threads, answering questions, trying to determine what changes people want. The people that run the site are known and an active part of the site, and I swear, every time I go there, there is some new, nice little addition to make it just a little better. I love all the stats, I love the clean look, I love all the available data, the recommendations, similarities to others libraries...well, I could go on and on. I love all the numbers and stats and interconnectedness of it all.

Needless to say, I have stopped updating my GoodReads account. I may just delete the whole account, if I could figure out how, just to tidy up lose ends.
Library Thing is all I need.

Primarily, I use it for my own record keeping. It is amazing..or bizarre...or sad...how many times it has saved me from buying a book I already have or already read. Library Thing is so neat and tidy. So unlike my Real Life books. It gives me an organization I will never have in real life.

Book recommendations. Well, if I needed any, Library Thing wold certainly be happy to help me in that regard. All those stats again, the whole "people that own this book also like this book" thing, plus the ability to look at other similar libraries or search by tags...well, the ways of finding recommendations on LT are many. But, as I have also discussed her, I am not really in need of any more books at the moment. Or for several years.

Do I use it as a social networking site? No, not really. I read some of the threads in groups there, I post on occasion but it has never really grabbed my interest a great deal. Partly that whole "so little time" thing too.

But, since LT introduced me to the whole idea of ARCs, and in fact to the whole world of book blogs, it did introduce me to you all, my dear readers. That's social enough for me!

16 comments:

  1. I use Library Thing and Good Reads, but LT is my true love, too.

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  2. Well, if that isn't the best sales job I've ever read, I don't know what is! I am not an old stuffy person resistant to change, but I've resisted LT or other similar websites. I am afraid to spend any more time on the computer, or my husband will leave me. Is it a huge time commitment?

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  3. the most time was to enter all my books originally, since I had about 1000-1100 on hand and eneted each by it's ISBN number. they have a scanner thing (and it is cute) you can buy quite cheap to scan the bar code, but I actually liked the chance to sort and organize my books. (that did not last too long....)
    from there, it is all about how much you want to enter, how you want to use LT. I like adding tags and such and that can get a bit addictive...but then I find many things can.
    but really, now, I find it saves me more time than I use there.

    and it is so neat....so tidy...
    the best $25 I ever spent, for a lifetime/unlimited membership.
    EVER.

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  4. Another LibraryThing fan here, and like you, LT introduced me to blogging. I pop in to the message boards occasionally, but mostly I just enter books as I read them, do the Early Reviewer program, and try to keep up with snipping my reviews and including portions of them on the books I blog about. It doesn't take much time to do that, and it's easier to search than my blog is.

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  5. Oh you people! Am I the only GoodReads gal here? (sniffle, sniffle)

    Here is my answer.

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  6. I currently do not use any of them but have looked at them all. I love the widgets, but most dont work with wordpress.

    I cant recall how Library Thing worked when I tried it.... and now of course I am so over the top busy with reading and blogging and life that it sounds like one more thing... :)

    Maybe this is a winter project for me?

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  7. I love Library Thing the most.

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  8. I've only used a few sites, but if I was to spend more time using any of them, it would likely be LibraryThing.

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  9. Susan, you are free to post, even if you are mistaken...lol

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  10. You may have just convinced me to give Library Thing a go!

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  11. darn, I wish I got a kickback!

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  12. I'm a Goodreads girl. I looked at Library Thing, but it just didn't seem as simple to me, and I'm all about ease of use.

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  13. I haven't signed up for Library Things yet, but I definitely think it's going to be better than GoodReads.

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  14. I'm beginning to think that perhaps you DO own stock in Library Thing. Your blog is just a love letter to it!!

    I agree with you though ... I like LT the best and it is the one I keep up the most. I do have Shelfari and GoodReads but mostly just to post reviews and stuff. I like the visual aspect of Shelfari though .. the little bookcase. And I'm not looking for socializing ... I get enough of that on my blog!

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  15. everyone mentions the bookshelf...but is that enough?

    I do not own stock in LT (hmmm...is it publicly traded...) nor am I related to the owner, nor is anyone backmailing me to say these things...

    (hope they buy that...)

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please speak up, I LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!!