Thing 13 - LibraryThing

LibraryThing is pretty darn cool. It's tons of fun adding and rating books in your library. I do wish the design and function of the site was a bit more elegant. I found it a bit difficult to find friends, and it took me forever to figure out how to write a review! It's not particularly intuitive in that respect. I also wish you could use the search box in your home page to search for and add books. It doesn't really help me much to search my own library, and I don't anticipate that being a feature I would use all that much even if I had a much larger compilation of books.

As it is I think LibraryThing is a great tool for librarians and staff to use internally. Staff could easily see the books their co-workers are reading and discuss them through the forums. It could be a really useful way to connect with other libraries and book enthusiasts for reader's advisory and book trend purposes. I don't think LibraryThing would be ideal for sharing with the public in it's current state. It could be a bit confusing for patrons who are unfamiliar with the application. I do like the idea of importing the reviews and suggestion features from LibraryThing into our pac. That would give our patron's access to the really helpful features without all the details.

So basically I think LibraryThing is a really nice tool for keeping track of the books you read and own. I also like the community aspect of being able to share books and make recommendations. It could use a little tweaking, but so far so good!