Ever wondered what occupies space on my bookshelf? No? Oh. Well …
Ryan mentioned LibraryThing on Twitter, and I gave it a whirl. I don’t read as many books as I used to, and even my comic book-reading days — the only type of fiction I’ve been consuming in the last decade — has waned significantly. Still, I managed to max out my free account, which caps a user’s catalog at 200 titles. (My account lists 201, because I deleted a redundant title and added another. Probably a bug.)
The interface to add books to your library is quite sleek. You can add a number of sources from which to search and toggle between each. As a result, I could list my esoteric Japanese music books after adding Amazon Japan as a search source. The one-search-fits-all text box accepts ISBNs and barcodes, so I sped through inputting my library with my 10-key mojo. It took an evening to reach the cap.
Impressed with LibraryThing, I gave Rate Your Music a try, and I posted my thoughts on that site over at Musicwhore.org. If Rate Your Music could emulate LibraryThing’s interface, I think it would have an easier time integrating with Musicbrainz. I’m rather astonished RYM doesn’t use the Amazon web services as a source for data entry.
A lifetime membership to LibraryThing (at this point) is $25. I might seriously consider it despite the fact I’m not much of a reader these days.