Thing 13

LibraryThing

Very Cool! I had heard of LibraryThing, but had never taken the time to explore it. I bit the bullet on this one, and joined...which is a big deal for me! I really liked the site utilized tags, as it made it easy to find similar books to the titles I proclaimed I liked. Again, this idea of recommending titles reminds me of iTunes and Rhapsody - music sites that do the same thing. My experience with the music sites leads me to not entirely believe the recommendations (as usually the most commercial, popular titles are recommended - which usually aren't congruent with my tastes). But in the library setting, such a free and quick reading advisory list is pretty amazing. While reading more about LibraryThing, I found out that many smaller libraries use the site as their catalog - which is ingenious as long as the site remains operational. I wonder if there is a back-up or security measures taken to protect content, as it would be too bad if an entire library catalog was lost due to technology issues or cyber-vandalism.

I had a question earlier in my blog concerning tags, and how there universal usefulness could maybe be questioned - as people find different descriptors for the same topic. Working with LibraryThing enlightened me to the fact that the idea is collating everyone's different tags, combing them so as to cover all angles one might approach a given topic or title. This is very useful, especially when it comes to reader advisory.

I still believe, when it comes to reader advisory and provide recommendations, that the best come from personal experience...in that books must be read in their entirety in order to understand its nuances. With that said, it's impossible to read everything even within a narrow subject - so tools like LibraryThing come in handy.