Putting the Books in Library 2.0 with Library Thing (Part I)

Although I’ve been an avid reader all my life, I didn’t become a librarian out of a love of books; this a good thing because I find my job as a public librarian really doesn’t seem to involve books that much.  I spend most of my time with computers, which is what makes 2.0 so much fun — there are all kinds of toys to play with to make my job more fun!  So it was great to be introduced to Library Thing last summer and in the process find out how I can apply a cool 2.0 webtool to my love of reading.

Library Thing (www.librarything.com) is a site that allows users to create and share online catalogs of books, complete with tagging, reviews, ratings and comments. 

Check out how my catalog is shaping up!  Entering books is as easy and typing in the title, author or keyword.  LibraryThing brings up a list of editions for that title, complete with book cover (when available).  You can then easily add tags, reviews, star ratings, even cataloging information! 

I love Library Thing because it speaks to several of my favorite things:

• obsessive list making
• counting the books I’ve read in a given year
• gazing lovingly at book covers for books I’ve read
• reading reviews

I’ve been keeping a personal book journal for a couple of years now, but there’s something so much more fun about being able to share my journal with others, to be able to sort it in different ways and to be able to see the book covers all lined up, almost as if they were on my shelf at home.  

I also love all the little surprising features Library Thing has to offer.  First off is the various tag clouds.  Tag clouds are diagrams that display all of the tags used by a user, where the size of the font represents the frequency of a tag; tags used more often will appear larger than tags used less frequently.  I love seeing the tag cloud for my library grow.  It reveals things about my reading patterns I wouldn’t have thought about otherwise.  I really thought I read more nonfiction that fiction, but I guess I don’t!

My tag cloud:

You can also view the tag cloud for all of the Library Thing users – a fun diversion that’s just the tip of the iceberg for using LibraryThing in a library setting.  Check out Part II for more!