LibraryThing

I've heard about LibraryThing lots of times before but I've never investigated it so now's my opportunity. I've probably misunderstood what the site is for because I've thought of it as a rather nerdy way of "cataloguing" the books on my shelves at home. I do plenty of that at work and I'm quite content to leave my own books in happy confusion (yes, I can find a book when I want it...). Well, looking at Thing 14, I realise that LibraryThing is much more interesting than I thought!

The list of libraries who have integrated LibraryThing into their catalogues is impressive - it has really taken off in the USA, but it is also used by libraries worldwide including some in the UK. I like the way they have integrated it into their catalogues, though some of them look very similar to Amazon as a result.

I've had a look at the Central Science Library and Nuffield Oxford's LibraryThings and I'm struggling a bit to see what they add to the user experience: on the plus side there are nice cover images for each book and people can add reviews and tags, but on the minus side the book details come from Amazon (and so are of uneven quality) and none of the users of these two libraries seem to write reviews! I think integration into a library catalogue is more useful.

Perhaps our students are not the target sudience for this application - they are simply trying to find books on their reading lists (i.e. books already selected as worth reading by an academic) as QUICKLY as possible. LibraryThing would be great for someone who is undecided about what to read because they can see how popular a book is, read reviews and search by tags than by LCSH. Another use of LibraryThing is to create 'libraries' or book lists for groups. Anna's idea of using LibraryThing for her college book group is brilliant - it helps to create a group identity and is a forum for interactivity.