LibraryThing at Tobias Buckell Online

Journal Entry

LibraryThing

June 7th 2007 at 3:02 pm

I’m still using LibraryThing to run the books I’m reading shelf on the right, which has worked out really well.

Elijah, who comments here, posted about it on his brand new blog, and cracked me up:

If you’re into books (like me) and just a shade obsessive compulsive (ahem, like me) it’s rather fun. Essentially you put together a list of the books you own, covers and all, write reviews and such of whatever you like, and then other people who are just as effing geeky as you are can look at yours and comment, start discussions, and so on and so forth.

So if this sort of a masturbatory, dorky as hell, excuse to show off something as self-centered and inconsequential as your book collection appeals to you–and Lord knows it appeals to me immensely–I suggest heading on over.

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8 Responses so far

1. Kristine Smith on Jun 7th, 2007 at 4:00 pm

I joined a few weeks ago, and have managed to enter about 25 books. How are you entering, by hand, or do you have some sort of bar code reader?
2. tobias buckell on Jun 7th, 2007 at 4:34 pm

Kristine, there is scanner you can buy from LibraryThing:

http://www.librarything.com/cuecat.php
3. Elijah on Jun 7th, 2007 at 6:18 pm

Thank you very much for the nod, by the way.

The CueCat seems like it would be a fun thing to have if I didn’t actually get so much perverse enjoyment out of entering in every little detail. That and I’m broke.
4. kwasi on Jun 8th, 2007 at 4:29 am

I have been avoiding getting an account there to preserve my sanity. Sooner or later I will have to give in though
5. Ken McConnell on Jun 8th, 2007 at 7:26 am

I’ve been using something similar called Shelfari for some time now.
6. Mary Dell on Jun 8th, 2007 at 11:33 am

I got the cuecat (it’s only $20) from them and it was able to scan about 4/5 of the stuff I threw at it. The rest, I either entered the ISBN by hand or (for really old stuff) keyed in the title. Before I got the scanner I was using the digital camera to take pictures of my shelves so I could pull up the pic on my monitor and key in the titles all in a row without…not too bad but the scanner’s definitely better.

I entered about 400 books in one day once I got the scanner…I’ve got 900+ in there now and just one bookcase left to enter! Woohoo!
7. Kristine Smith on Jul 11th, 2007 at 10:18 pm

better late than never–thanks for the tip about the barcode reader!
8. tobias buckell on Jul 11th, 2007 at 11:18 pm

No problem!