Oh. My. God.
I have not been this excited about the Internet since I ‘discovered’ blogging. Have you seen that Library Thing? It’s an online catalogue where you can store all your book titles in one spot.
Let’s back up a minute and examine what we know about Danigirl:
(1) She loves books.
(2) She loves collecting books almost as much as she loves reading books.
(3) She is an obsessive bean counter at heart.
(4) She is incapable of wandering more than 20 feet away from her computer for more than three hours at a stretch.
(5) She is an inveterate exhibitionist, and her favourite game is “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Wrap up all these qualities into a box, put a lovely ribbon on it, and make it ridiculously easy to use and painfully addictive, and you have that Library Thing.
I spent an hour and a half last night feeding two shelves of my favourite books into Library Thing’s database. Fifty-eight books down, 600 to go. Okay, maybe I’ll get bored and lose interest before I get to the cartons of pulp paperbacks stashed in the closet. But probably not.
And – did I mention they provide a blog trick? Books, beancounting and BLOG TRICKS, you say? Can you believe how cool it is? Now you can see five random titles from my library each time you drop by, right there in the sidebar below the word of the day.
You’ve got to try it! I thought it was a pretty neat trick until I actually tried to add a book… then I was hopelessly smitten. All you do is key in a couple of key search terms, and the database populates the rest of the information for you. It’s a tool for bookloving, bean-counting, blog-tricking LAZY people – it’s uncanny, I tell you.
Categories: Books
wow. like it was made just for you. and me. who also collects books obsessively and loves nifty blog tricks and yeah…i’m hooked and i’ve not even tried it yet 🙂
how cool and how so YOU 😉
Did I tell you about my new “part-time job”? Every Tuesday morning for 2 hours or so I go in my dd’s school library and help out! I love it, it’s quiet, it fulfills my sense of organization and perfection and I get to see a whole bunch of books, OK kids books but books are books right?
oops! that last entry was mine!
Hey Dani – I just looked up your list and you have some books I’d LOVE to borrow!! Is that an option?
BUT…can I play the cynic here and mention to you that you could’ve done this yourself at home, like on Excel or something?? I have a list of books I want to read saved.
Of course I know it is more fun to play on a website like this, heck, maybe I’ll play along too just so I can do that fun blog link thing. However, I may have more Dr. Seuss than grown up books.
OK – looks like fun – I’ll play – sorry for being antigonistic.
Mwah!
That is truly truly cool. I should do it too. I love tne “graphical shelf” where it displays the covers.
Nitpick: it has your Alice Munro filed under the A’s, as “Alice, Munro”.
You always know the good gadgets. I’m still trying to figure out tracback 🙂
Oh, no, Nancy. If you type in the ISBN it will look up the book for you — you don’t even have to type in all the information yourself. Try doing that with Excel!
It’s a tool for bookloving, bean-counting, blog-tricking LAZY people – it’s uncanny, I tell you.
I love it! You’ve just summed up its appeal for me EXACTLY! Now, off to catalog more books…
OK Phantom S – you win. And I tried it, only had to type in author and all the books came up and I just had to click on them to add – very nice.
thanks for the thoughtful insights… books are my love and my life… take a look here, and you’ll see the similarities 😀
keep up the good work, and keep on reading to your hearts content 😉
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OMG too much fun – hitting refresh and seein ghte different random book titles coming up…do the same on mine – too much fun!!
I am sorry I dissed this earlier, cause I just entered a whole bunch (very easy) and have done it mostly so I can have fun every day seeing what my random 5 books are. Odd though, no link for People magazine or Pier 1 catalogue??
That is very cool. I still have a little book shelf of favorites, but since I started actually going to the library as well as borrowing books from a girlfriend who basically IS a library. I haven’t bought a novel in … three years!!!! I stick to necessary research books or cooking books oh yes and the ever growing children’s section, for now we buy will head to the library when he understands the concept of sending it back!
Anna – book lover on the cheap
TwinMom, I would SO love to volunteer in the school library! Good for you!!
Nancy, it was funny to read your comments as you were eventually won over. Thanks for the real-time account! And of course you can borrow, but no mailsies – you must pick up or deliver in person.
Genevieve – ack! I hate that typo but I can’t fix it. Have actually sent a note to the admin about the bug.
Bart, that’s a lot of books!! You mentioned Hitchhiker’s Guide in your post – I’ve read all of those books years ago, but have just recently decided that I must acquire them for my library. I got a gift certificate for my birthday with Douglas Adams written all over it!
xo Dani
Hey Nancy, did you see this?
http://www.librarything.com/profile_similars.php?view=danigirl
They have this feature that compares people with similar libaries. They adjust for book obscurity and library size, and adjusting for both, the person whose library is most similar to mine is – YOURS!!!
How cool is that?
I missed this thread of yours when you first posted it, but, yep, I had the EXACT same reaction as you did — best thing to hit the Internet since blogging. And since our libraries match so closely, I guess it only makes sense that we’d have such similar initial reactions.
Dani — Are you the sister I never knew about? Come to think about it, you kind of LOOK like one of my sisters.
Since you like Library Thing, I wonder if you might be interested in trying out blueorganizer from adaptiveblue. It lets you collect books (and movies, wines, video game, and more) from your favorite websites then share them with your friends via RSS. Please check out http://www.adaptiveblue.com for more info. If you do try it, we’d love to know what you think.
Thanks,
anderson