Library Thing

I have looked at Library Thing before and found it to be very user friendly. I can see a use for it at work doing Readers' Advisory. Because of the tags and the fact that recommendations come from a wide variety of readers, this is probably a better source for recommendations than NovelList. NovelList has to use controlled vocabulary and descriptors that make recommendations rather objective. Many times the reason a customer loves a book can't be put down to subject or character occupation or stuff like that. Often what a customer is looking for is the feel of a book. They want a title that "feels" the same as the book they loved. Library Thing is much more subjective. I checked a title I loved and the list of recommendations contained exactly what I would have recommended. Often the subjects, characters, settings, etc. had nothing to do with the original title, but the reading experience, the "feel" was the same. I like this facet of Library Thing.

That said, I don't think I would use this in my personal life. While I really would like to have a list of all the books I own, including stuff about the authors and reviews and all, I would like to have it done by an employee. While I love cataloguing, I can see this could be a time vortex, allowing my obsessiveness to run away with me. I use Facebook's book application to keep track of what I have read and I can't see myself dedicating any more time than that to my book list.