Review: Library Thing

[mishalak]

I now have a more complete review having uploaded 50 books into the Library Thing website (my catalog). I've gotten better at knowing how to pull information for weird editions of books, even from the Library of Congress. Part of the secret is to use what is unusual about it, like if it has an introduction by another author. The information still is not as complete as would like, but it simplifies the process. Of all the providers I still think I like Library of Congress information the best. It tends to be the most consistent so far. The ISBN thing works very well except where the publisher has done something strange like put two numbers in because it is part of a multi-volume work. I also wish the site had some sort of "condition" field for people like me who care about such things.

It still isn't a totally thrilling process. I suppose that if I started going for my full 4000 (or whatever) books I should buy a scanner. Yes, among other things I discovered that it will export the information to excel and that if you have a barcode scanner that hooks up to your computer by the USB port you can just scan books rather than typing in numbers. I'm pretty good at ten key though so I am reluctant to buy something.

I am still looking to see if there is some sort of way for collectors to share information about books so that we could, say, enter the Hill House information once and not have to do as much information entry. The collection of cover scans is remarkably complete. So far I've had just a few very rare books that were not scanned in by a previous user.

So I'm happier with the experience now. Don't know that I'd recommend it yet, but it is becoming more useful as I go on.

Comments

[hai-irouchuujin.livejournal.com]

Very interesting review. I've been looking at something to replace Hand-D-Base on my old Handspring Visor. Do you know if they let you import from Hand-D-Base? I couldn't find anything on the site about what formats you could import and export to. I'd love to be able to export to tab delinated text or to an excell file.

I just lost at least a years worth of book entry data when I had a battery failure. (yeah, I forgot to back up my data) I'm not looking forward to recreating that data. The only problem I see is that I need to be able to access the data when I'm at book sales and book stores.

Anyway, thanks for the information, please keep us posted as to what you think of it as you use it more.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

It appears (http://www.librarything.com/import.php) that unless you have ISBN numbers in your file it won't work. If you do have ISBN numbers it probably will. With some cleaning up of the resulting library afterwards.

[hai-irouchuujin.livejournal.com]

Ah, but I see that it works with the old cuecat scanners. I know I used to have one of these, two of them in fact, including a usb version.

I wonder if I still have them. If so, that would make things very interesting. I could just scan in at least half of my library. I'll have to dig around and see what I can find.

Library Thing might just be the answer to at least some of my cataloging problems. If I can just figure out how to get the data back into a readable and searchable format for my obsolete Handspring Visor, I'll be in business.

Thanks for the nudge toward trying this out.

Jack