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LibraryThingCatalog your books online


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#1 innopac

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Posted 07 December 2008 - 01:01 PM

I have just discovered LibraryThing. It is fantastic! Free for 200 books or $25 for a life membership. It is set up to catalog books but you can use it for dvds etc. You have a choice of downloading catalog records of books from various sources all over the world and editing those records or manually entering a record from scratch. It copes with other languages. And you can download the book covers or scan and upload covers if they aren't available on the web.

This software is so easy. What is great is that you can add tags for subject or even box number if you have to store some of your books in cupboards. And you can easily do global changes of tags if you realize later that certain books should have been given an additional tag.

You can create lists with the cover images and you can manipulate the lists easily.

Here is an example of a LibraryThing library.

LibraryThing is set up so you can engage in book discussion groups etc or block yourself from being part of that aspect of LibraryThing. It is also possible to make your library available for public view or not.

As someone who has at various times created book lists in Word, Excel and Access this is just so much easier and more flexible. There are areas for comments and reviews.

The main thing that slows you down is the handling of the books and getting distracted into rereading bits and savoring the past memories that they conjure up!

#2 rg

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Posted 07 December 2008 - 03:19 PM

i don't understand how this 'works'.
why does the link take one to the 'summit school of dance' library - is it a sample?
does one just take the already posted data for a given book if one also has a copy?
is there a sample for dvd features too?

#3 innopac

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Posted 07 December 2008 - 04:08 PM

The link I gave was just an example of someone's library.

Here is a link to the site.

You can enter in manually the details of your book or you can download the details (author, title, publisher, language, date of publication etc) from various organizations including the Library of Congress and Amazon. You choose which record you prefer. And you can edit it as well.

Although LibraryThing is not set up for dvds for the automatic download of information you could enter in a dvd manually and add a tag like dvd or ballet dvd. You can have lots of tags so you could have a tag for company, performers etc if you wanted to be able to click on the tag and pull out related items.

I have only started using it so am not an expert but am very happy so far.

To join you need to give them a login and a password only. You can add in an email address if you think you might forget the password.

#4 Marga

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Posted 07 December 2008 - 04:32 PM

innopac, I went straight from your post to start my own library at LibraryThing. It is brilliant! I've already entered 45 books easily by clicking on them from the amazon list or other members' libraries. I found in a shared listing that a BT VIP had also started a library today, so I'm in good company. :)

Thank you so much for this link. I really needed it, having around a thousand dance books. My screenname there is "balleticabooks", "balletica" being my usual ballet screenname elsewhere on the net, but having been taken by someone else on LibraryThing a year and a half ago with the listing of a single book who then seems to have abandoned the effort. (It's not the first time a chosen screenname of mine has been locked up by someone on a site who then does not use it -- grr.)

Finally, some order in my life! I can't thank you enough. :P Now I've got to take photos of most of my books for their cover shots!

edited to add: the count is now over 130 books (that I've entered). It's such a kick to see my books organized online this way. I especially like looking at the covers. I'm fast approaching 200 books, so will be having to take out a year's membership soon.....

#5 Ray

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Posted 07 December 2008 - 05:43 PM

You can also set up your own library on Google Books--you can include books they've scanned in as well as your own titles. And it's completely free.

#6 Marga

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Posted 07 December 2008 - 07:53 PM

I gave GoogleBooks a try, and while good for searching for books, it doesn't come near the ease of use for creating your own library that Librarything does.

#7 innopac

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Posted 07 December 2008 - 11:12 PM

I gave GoogleBooks a try, and while good for searching for books, it doesn't come near the ease of use for creating your own library that Librarything does.


I just discovered if you put in the isbn number when you are adding a title, especially for a newer book, it takes you straight to the correct record.

#8 Ray

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Posted 08 December 2008 - 05:32 AM

I gave GoogleBooks a try, and while good for searching for books, it doesn't come near the ease of use for creating your own library that Librarything does.


I just discovered if you put in the isbn number when you are adding a title, especially for a newer book, it takes you straight to the correct record.


Sounds like there's software out there for all styles of archiving! It might be fun to merge libraries here on BT.

#9 dirac

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Posted 08 December 2008 - 11:39 AM

Thanks for posting, innopac. Interesting site.

#10 innopac

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Posted 08 December 2008 - 11:53 AM

It might be fun to merge libraries here on BT.

It should be possible on LibraryThing if you gave all ballet books and dvds the extra tag, "ballet talk library", or something similar.

If you go to the search page at LibraryThing and enter the tag dancers into the tag search box this will show you how that works.

The tag "dancers" has been used 248 times by 85 users. There are 200 titles that have been tagged with "dancers". For example: "Vaslav Nijinsky : a leap into madness" by Peter Ostwald has been given the tag "dancers" by two people. However, when you click on the title of the book you see that it is actually in thirteen LibraryThing libraries and has been given one review. Another example is "Mao's Last Dancer" by Cunxin Li has been given the tag "dancers" by four people. But when you click on the title you see that it is in 365 LibraryThing libraries and has been given thirteen reviews.

If you already have a library on LibraryThing you can add tags globally to a group of items in your library. You don't have to add tags individually.

#11 Helene

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Posted 08 December 2008 - 12:23 PM

Many thanks, innopac! I've just signed up, and will start to create my library tonight.

#12 Helene

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Posted 08 December 2008 - 08:07 PM

I catalogued the books I have that aren't in storage, 72 in total, and the top three books that match other members -- a fluid number -- now are "Rebecca", the new translation of "The Magic Mountain", and "Lies My Teacher Told Me". For a while, it looked like Adam Gopnik's "Paris to the Moon" was going to be, but it's now in 7th place.

20, or over 25%, have no matches at all, and they're not all that obscure :thumbsup:


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