Thing 11 - LibraryThing

What a wonderful service, and free for the first 200 titles! I've actually been a member of LibraryThing for almost 2 years now, but have never gotten around to adding all my books into it. And I really should, because I've got a lot of books and I love that this site will catalogue them all for me and do 99% of the work! I keep telling myself, where else could I possibly take a list of all my book titles (several thousand at this point) and get them all catalogued for $25, the cost of a lifetime membership?

It's a tremendous way to discover new titles of interest, read reviews by others of books in your collection. I particularly like the fact that you can get suggestions for new titles based on feedback from other LibraryThing users (as long as you have a title that is owned by 75 or more members). This could be a great aid to book discussion groups as well as individually. I laugh decidedly harder when using the UnSuggester, which will give you a list of books (following the same criteria as above, 75 or more owing members) that you will hate based on the book you input. For instance, if you liked Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, the UnSuggester suggests you will definitely not like Sophie Kinsella's Confessions of a Shopaholic! This site is also really great for discovering like (or otherwise)-minded souls to discuss books with. A former trainer of mine in a seminar uses LibraryThing to catalogue her and her husband's rare and used book collection, which will become her retirement business.

You can visit my little list of titles at http://www.librarything.com/catalog/prakashsteve.

P.S. Yes, I added the Thingology and LibraryThing blogs to my blogroll. I'm hopeless!