It could just be that it's 10.30 on a Friday night and part of me thinks I should be out doing something spectacular, while the other half of me thinks I should be tucked up in bed finishing the last hundred pages of Red Ice ... but I'm not completely blown away by Library Thing.
Don't get me wrong ... I think the widget looks pretty specky over there on my right, and I'm kinda impressed by the way the covers keep changing, randomly ... but it seemed like such a chore to add the titles, then the tags ...
It's not that the process wasn't simple - it was no more difficult than Delicious (or risotto). No, the real problem was trying to decide which books to add. Did I really want to add all the Cherub books, or all the James Patterson, Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwall and Matthew Reilly books? And would my collection be serving it's true purpose if I added just one from each author? I suspect not ...
I do, however, like Library Thing for libraries. It's like having a personal reader advisory service embedded into the catalogue. Unfortunately, I fear it is under-utilised at Mandurah Libraries for the simple reason that very few people - staff or clients - seem to know of its existence, and those of us who do are not (yet) adequately trained in its application.
Something else to add to the to do list perhaps?
I could think of better things to be doing on a Friday night, and this course aint one of them.
ReplyDeleteI agree about adding ALL the books for personal use. In saying that, if I added all that I read, at least I could refer back to the list and find what to select next, particularly non fiction items by my favourite authors. It is certainly a useful site from a library point of view, it's fantastic!
ReplyDeleteI think it could be a great tool for libraries just need to work out how it would best work and how much time it would take up. Who set it up at Mandurah?
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