MetaChat - Questions about Librarything:

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

18 December 2008

Questions about Librarything: Does anyone here have an account there? I just started one today here. So far I've added only the teeniest tiniest tip top of my huge library iceberg (completely randomly, and I've rated hardly anything, and added no tags so far), and I've reached my limit for the free account (200 books)... →[More:]

It's only $10 for a year for a paid membership, and I'm thinking of doing that just because I really, really need somewhere to browse what I have, especially since most of my books are digital now.

It's not perfect... I'd like to automatically import the most popular tags, for example, and if you don't have a scanner for physical books, or some kind of spreadsheet or something to import, it's really time consuming to add to the library when you have a lot to add, so a drag and drop would be nice, blah, blah, etc...

But I've tried a couple of software library packages that have been real pains, and haven't come up with a better way of organizing this info - and I like that you can browse other people's libraries, ratings, check out discussions about certain books, and that it's all online for when my computer goes klunk.

Any input in terms of librarything or alternative options?

It would be very cool if a lot of people here did it...

post by: taz at: 16:41 | 12 comments

Since amazon started having multiple wishlists I use a wishlist titled Already Read for things that I've...well, you know. It's been super handy for me.

posted by birdie 18 December | 17:10

I use a separate book-related delicious account linking to amazon pages and my own little tage bundles, and it works great. I also have a half-bothered with librarything account (two actually, I think) but never took to it.

posted by guinness416 18 December | 21:39

Shelfari.

Shelfari is very much like LibraryThing but with no limit (at least not that I'm aware of -- if there is, it's certainly much more than 200).

posted by Jaltcoh 18 December | 23:12

That's Shelfari.

posted by Jaltcoh 18 December | 23:12

Here's mine if you want to see an example.

posted by Jaltcoh 18 December | 23:14

There's Goodreads, too. I haven't used it, though people keep plugging it.

posted by box 18 December | 23:47

Librarything had a pay-what-you-can-afford model, where the $10/$25 amounts were guidelines rather than fixed prices - I don't know if that's still the case, though. They do have a few options for importing data en masse, but I don't know if these are flexible enough for what you have in mind.

posted by misteraitch 19 December | 01:50

Well, I joined. There are a lot of metafilter people on there, and I like the way it looks more than Shelfari, I think. The updates posts seem to show that they are regularly working on it and adding features, I've already found a lot of discussions that point me towards books I'd like to read, and the large number of users makes me hope that it won't just disappear one day.

I got a lifetime membership, after all, as a xmas present to myself ($10 for a year $25 for lifetime, so what the hell... and it looks like they give a range, so you can pay less if your money is tight, which I think is excellent).

Maybe it turns out I neglect it, but I kind of doubt it since books are the one single daily (non-living, breathing) constant in my life (the one obsession that never wanes).

Though, hmmmm.... GoodReads looks great, too.

on preview... yes - what misteraitch said! :)

posted by taz 19 December | 01:52

I guess I'm a bit like you in that respect taz, in that I tend to my library as if it were almost alive, rather more assiduously, in practice, than I tend to most houseplants unfortunate enough to cross my threshold. In my case I have few enough books that it was possible for me to add them to the catalogue one at a time over the course of a few weeks.

I looked at shelfari too, and it seemed great apart from its strong reliance on amazon as its primary source of data. I have a significant number of obscure/foreign/old books, and librarything seemed to have the advantage when it comes to cataloguing those.

posted by misteraitch 19 December | 06:48

it looks like they give a range, so you can pay less if your money is tight, which I think is excellent

That's weird. Paying money for a website just to have a list of your books is so inherently extravagant ... I'd think anyone who wants to save money rather than waste money would use Shelfari instead of LibraryThing.

Or start multiple LibraryThing accounts. I had several accounts (grouped by category) to be able to use the website for free while including my more-than-200 books. Then I noticed Shelfari and was like, "wow, LibraryThing is a pointless website."

posted by Jaltcoh 19 December | 17:08

I joined Librarything because of this post, Taz. It's a neat gizmo.

And you, you are also a neat gizmo.

posted by Lipstick Thespian 19 December | 18:35

Thanks, LT... you need to check your messages and be my friend!

Now that I've played with it a couple of days, I'm very pleased. What I didn't quite get at first was that all my books can be sorted by subject very precisely, and I don't have to input all that info, because it automagically provides that data. So, for example, I can obviously sort by such things as "mystery", "science fiction", blah, blah, but also more refined categories, like "fables", "dystopias", or "psychological fiction", which is very, very cool. I can also click on any of those categories, and get a whole list from all the books listed on the site, if I'm looking for more of that sort.

This is only the second site I've spent membership money on in all my years, I think... because...

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by taz 20 December | 07:41

← ...and then my computer broke. || Snow Day! →

HOME || REGISTER || LOGIN