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LibraryThing
May. 26th, 2008 11:40 amFortuitously, and somewhat unexpectedly, I have found myself to be the recent recipient of a LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com) Lifetime Membership! (Thanks Tim!) Looks like I'll be giving the site much more of a workout than I first expected.
So far, as a comparison, between LibraryThing and GoodRead (http://www.goodreads.com/) I've found both sites have their pros and cons.
GoodReads definitely looks a lot better at the moment, and the interface is cleaner and simpler to use, but I hear that LibraryThing is due for a re-skinning somewhere in the future. I think this is definitely its biggest problem at the moment though... it looks a bit ugly.
More of my books show up in LibraryThing than they did in GoodReads searches, although LibraryThing also seems to have a lot of dud user entered information against some editions - incorrect Author names mainly, or so many variations on the spelling of an Author's name that it looks messy.
The social aspects of LibraryThing seem quite well integrated and I think this will become more useful to me as I enter more of my books (147 already and that is just the first of 12 shelves!). I've definitely found a lot more of my friends on LibraryThing than I did on GoodReads.
Things I miss in LibraryThing that I like in GoodReads?
The system of 'Shelves' is much better used in GoodReads. Any book I enter can be added to one of three shelves you start off with "Read", "Currently Reading" and "To Be Read". It is very simple to switch your library between these three views. You can also add your own shelves to arrange books by, and this is in addition to the standard 'Tags' cataloguing system used by most sites. This is probably the thing I miss most, and I'd love to see something similar added to LibraryThing. I know you can mark books as 'Currently Reading' and 'To Be Read', but the system for doing so is a little bit clumsy. And, even once I'd set a couple of books with those fields, I couldn't work out how to show those views in my Library.
I've only been using it for a day though and have many more books to enter. I'm sure I'll find more in the two systems to compare and contrast, and I'll keep you all updated on what I think.
So far, as a comparison, between LibraryThing and GoodRead (http://www.goodreads.com/) I've found both sites have their pros and cons.
GoodReads definitely looks a lot better at the moment, and the interface is cleaner and simpler to use, but I hear that LibraryThing is due for a re-skinning somewhere in the future. I think this is definitely its biggest problem at the moment though... it looks a bit ugly.
More of my books show up in LibraryThing than they did in GoodReads searches, although LibraryThing also seems to have a lot of dud user entered information against some editions - incorrect Author names mainly, or so many variations on the spelling of an Author's name that it looks messy.
The social aspects of LibraryThing seem quite well integrated and I think this will become more useful to me as I enter more of my books (147 already and that is just the first of 12 shelves!). I've definitely found a lot more of my friends on LibraryThing than I did on GoodReads.
Things I miss in LibraryThing that I like in GoodReads?
The system of 'Shelves' is much better used in GoodReads. Any book I enter can be added to one of three shelves you start off with "Read", "Currently Reading" and "To Be Read". It is very simple to switch your library between these three views. You can also add your own shelves to arrange books by, and this is in addition to the standard 'Tags' cataloguing system used by most sites. This is probably the thing I miss most, and I'd love to see something similar added to LibraryThing. I know you can mark books as 'Currently Reading' and 'To Be Read', but the system for doing so is a little bit clumsy. And, even once I'd set a couple of books with those fields, I couldn't work out how to show those views in my Library.
I've only been using it for a day though and have many more books to enter. I'm sure I'll find more in the two systems to compare and contrast, and I'll keep you all updated on what I think.
