Book Mania: LibraryThing

OBSESSED currently with LibraryThing. It is an online book cataloging service with social media applications that combines a love of books with a mania for organizing. It allows all of us to indulge in our librarian fantasies without actually having to get a Library Science degree.

I found out about Library Thing last May and immediately began entering the books I was currently reading. I could rate them, review them, classify them in all sorts of ways, see who else was reading them and what they thought. I even figured out how to add gadgets of books I am reading (see far right column) to my websites.

In January 2010 I moved, a daunting task for any book lover. While packing up box after box of books, I decided that when unpacking them I would catalog them all on LibraryThing. I am currently in that process, and am I ever glad I have done this. In picking up and looking over each book, I have relived many memories, discovered old friends (both of the book and people variety). Remembered who gave me books, where I bought books, how certain novels and poems made me feel, how one particular novel changed the way I thought about writing in general (Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf, which I am going to reread and blog about soon). My personal library contains my own personal history.

This sorting out of memories and possessions bring forth one of the great draws of Library Thing: books are more than dusty bound sheets of paper, they carry ideas and emotions and likes, dislikes, prejudices. This site not only gives me the chance to sort all of that out, but do it in a public way. Other people can see what books I own, see how I have rated or reviewed them.  Reading can be such an isolated activity, and so many of us have used books as an escape form others, so it is nice to find an outlet for book people that makes me feel a little less isolated.

I have connected online and through email with a couple of authors, but more importantly, I have revived the most passionate love of my life.

http://www.librarything.com

Photos below are from  LibraryThing.com, and are generic screenshots and publicity photos they provided.