I am looking for a good book . . .

Hello All,

Before this week I had never heard of Library Thing but thanks to What is Social Cataloging? by Tim Spalding this interesting cataloguing tool of the people has gotten me thinking.  Library thing has the ability to allow people to catalogue their own works, small libraries can use it to catalogue their collection at no cost, and with no need of a professional cataloguer but of most interest to me is how this tool works as reader’s advisory.

Library Thing – What a reader’s advisory tool!

You don’t have to be a member to get some suggestions from library thing about books you might light.  Just typing in the title of a book, or an author you have enjoyed in the past brings up multiple suggestions of other books you might like to explore.  When I experimented with this and searched “The Birth House” by Ami McKay a favourite book of mine by a Canadian author who has yet to publish a second novel I was given many suggestions for other books.  To my surprise a lot of the suggestions were books I had seen in passing while processing holds, or doing check in that I thought looked interesting but had yet to check out myself.

While some may argue that Novelist provides the same sort of resource you do need a subscription, and generally I the interface isn’t as user friendly.  Library Thing brings together the collective intelligence of many like minded readers in one place.  When you think of getting reading suggestions who do you go to for help?  I know that despite my library experience and access to reader’s advisory tools I often just ask a friend whom I have shared reading interests in the past if they have read anything good lately.  Knowing that she and I share the same definition of good I feel confident that I will be suggested something I will enjoy.

Library Thing brings thousands of like minded friends together to suggest to you something that will likely match your definition of good and all you have to do is search a favorite title or author.  Next time a patron tells me that they are looking for a good read, I will definitely look to Library Thing as a way of finding a suggestion that will hopefully match their definition of good!

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