Things That I Like: LibraryThing

LibraryThing has got to be one of the best free things available on the internet. What is LibraryThing? It’s an online book catalog where you can list your own library for free (as long as you have less than 200 or them), or, as in my case, your whole church library for $15 per year.

It’s simple to use. All you need to do is type in the ISBN number of a book, or author and a few key words, and there you have it, everything you need to add the book to your online library. Much easier than cataloging on cards with pen and ink, and I should know, because I’m cataloging the books in the church library that way at the same time I’m adding them to LibraryThing.

And your library is searchable—and alphabetically-arrangeable—by author, title, and subject (aka tags). The biggest plus for a church library like mine, as I see it, is that the catalog is available to any member of the congregation while they’re at home during the week, as long as they have web access.

So far, I only have 300 books catalogued—it’s the index card and ink thing that’s holding things up—but I’ll let you take a peak anyway. Just click on either button at the top left to choose whether you view by list or by covers.  And the column heading you click—author, title, or tag—will determine the feature by which the book list is alphabetized.

Yes, we have some books I’d be happier without, but we’ve got some good ones, too. We get our books by donation, so what we have is what we get. You can’t look a gift book in the mouth. And you shouldn’t judge a library by it’s book covers. Or something.

And the best is yet to catalog.

Comments

[Murray]

Book Collector software does the same thing, with more features and no annual fee - http://www.collectorz.com/book/

[rebecca]

Is it web-based? As I understood it, for Book Collector we would need to download different software for Windows and Mac.

There were a couple of other things that gave me pause, too, but I don't remember what they were.