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So I've started playing around with LibraryThing, which seems to be an interesting take on social networking based on books -- which are, well, kinda important to me. The site seems to be a unique way of seeing what books other people own, of getting some feedback on them, and of garnering recommendations for books you otherwise might have missed. It seems to be amazon's "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought..." list on steroids, and much better thought out.
Anyone else out there a member of this? What's your take on it?
Anyone else out there a member of this? What's your take on it?
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It's fun seeing what's out there, and they've got discussion forums, if you're looking for another time-sink :-)
I don't do much with it, aside from setting up my author page and posting the occasional review.
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I'm not surprised at that, in the sense that if the population of those on LibraryThing is a representative sample of the general readership, then you can expect them to have picked up books proportionally to the general population of book readers...
Yeah. Another time-sink. Just what I need! :-)
From:
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So far I haven't found it very useful as either a social networking site or a recommendation site. I suspect my interests are too narrowly defined (or my opinions too strongly-held) for any site to be able to provide useful algorithm-driven recommendations. The vast majority of new authors I try out come from either friends' recommendations ("Hey, if you like Alastair Reynolds then you should try Neal Asher...") or browsing at bookstores.
I do get a little extra traffic from it for my reviews, though.
Overall, on the one hand it's kinda nice to have my books catalogued, but on the other hand they're all neatly alphabetized on my bookshelves so it doesn't really seem very necessary.
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As you say, if you have titles where only one or two other people hold copies then the recommendations are a lot less useful - if there are any at all - but for bigger names it can be a useful way to discover a new author in a similar vein.
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My goal is to get all my books in by the end of the month. If I can stop Debra at DAW from giving me freelance work... :-)
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Over the past few years I've developed and polished a freeware book catalogue program (BookDB) which is designed for off-line use. To give you an idea of how good LibraryThing is, I now use LT as my primary catalogue and BookDB as a backup.
Just last week I added an LT importer to BookDB so I could export my LT catalogue as an XLS file and keep a local copy in BDB on my PC. (Much faster searching is one reason.)
I'll keep on developing BookDB, which is freeware, because it has lending library features and I still prefer to keep my data offline.
By the way, the LT 'friending' is a very recent addition. A couple of months ago you could add someone to your watchlist and leave them a message, but that was about all.
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:)
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Hi, I'm Sheryl, and I'm a book-aholic.
I got to clicking around and ... well now I need a barcode scanner! That would be the easiest way to document my collection - what a smart thing to do, insurance wise... plus the fun of meeting others who've read the same books. Thanks for the tip!
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Yeah, books are an addiction, aren't they? :-)
From: (Anonymous)
U can use your webcam too
http://www.getlibra.com/node/27
It works the same as your CueCat scanner, except that it uses the webcam to detect your barcode instead. Pretty nifty.
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Re: U can use your webcam too
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