LibraryThing

I like LibraryThing. It would be fun to keep all of my books in their system (but then I'd have to pay, I have lots of books). I entered 50 books from memory--if I wanted to enter all of them I'd have to do it at home. It would be great to be able to see what I have when I'm at a used book sale and can't remember whether I already have a book or not. Apparently you can do that on your cell phone, but I can't see myself using my phone for anything but phone calls.

What I found strange was the results I'd get when searching for books. The Amazon search seemed to work the best (the few times I tried using LOC it was fairly useless), but I could rarely find the edition of the book that I actually have. For example, I have plain old hardcover American copies of all the Harry Potter books, but they didn't come up in the search. There were all kinds of foreign editions and the paperback. I find it hard to believe that Amazon doesn't list the hardcover HP books, so where were they? For older, rarer books I can understand it being harder to find a certain edition, but not for Harry Potter. Maybe I am somewhat of a cataloger at heart, because I'd like the books listed to actually be the editions I have. However, it doesn't seem to make any difference--if I choose one edition of a certain book, and then another, it shows the same number of other LibraryThing users who own the book, so it's combining editions anyway.

Which is another thing that's cool--being able to see other libraries that match up with mine. I like seeing what other people own, and seeing that I'm not the only one who likes a certain book. I tried entering a couple of the more unusual books I have, and still no less than 7 people also have each book. (Ooh, I just found one only 2 other people have!) I like the Book Suggester and UnSuggester too. Ok, now I have 66 books in my library, and I'd better stop.
My BookThing Library