Thing 14: LibraryThing

I absolutely loved this thing. In fact I heard about it from others here at the library and I jumpstarted a bit on making an account. I think that this is an absolutely fabulous tool. Not only does it alphabetize all of your books (which saves a lot of time!) it also allows you to look at others libraries. It is very interesting to see what other books someone with similar books to my own also has. It broadens your horizon and makes you think of books or reads that you normally would not. Its also a very good tool to keep track of books that you borrow out to others or to see your friend's books and see which ones you would like to borrow of theirs.
In the library setting, it would be beneficial for the patrons to see what their local librarians are reading or own. It could be a good stepping point for any recommendations. Not only that but it allows the patrons to get to know their local librarian a bit and perhaps make the library a bit more inviting of a place.
For smaller libraries, all of the collections can be recorded and posted onto Library Thing, Its nice to see the covers and gives a little bit more information on the books than the catalog. In a way, it makes the catalog more user friendly, offering recommendations to similar books or authors.
I also added the Library Thing search tool onto my blog. This is a very very cool feature.
Some drawbacks of LibraryThing is the limitation to 200 books in the free account. As a booklover, I have well over this and I hate to have to pick and choose which books to include or to pay the fees for the unlimited account. Which brings me to another drawback, having a lot of books, it takes a lot of time to register them all in the tool. I guess that just comes with the territory and really isn't that bad. Another thing, I am not sure if I was just unable to find the place to do this, but I was able to organize my nonfiction collection by the dewey decimal system. I was really hoping that it automatically did this when you registered the book but perhaps I will just have to play around with it a bit more. That won't be too difficult.
Overall, I loved loved loved this thing and I definitely plan on using it a lot in the future!!
Hooray for organization!!