LibraryThing

[rivkat]

I can't remember who pointed me to this site, but thank you! The developer seems to be adding features hourly, and the prospect of having my book collection cataloged online and in easily exportable formats is just great -- no longer will I have to wonder, when browsing through a bookstore, whether we already have a certain volume. And the social aspects -- seeing who shares your books and what they think -- are also great. I am particularly pleased because a partial upload of our collection put me in the top 20; I hope to crack the top 5 when data entry is complete.



Now if I could only figure out how to have the "random books from my library" widget appear on my journal below the other links.

Comments

[herewiss13.livejournal.com]

*looks up website*
*drools*

I need to get my collection out of boxes _now_, dammit! Although a mere 800 is starting to look somewhat paltry. ;-)

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

I never heard of this before, but OMG, I'm in love. LOVE!!!

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I've been using that site since late September and I am MADLY in love with it. Although it does seem to make me want to buy more and more and more books.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

BTW, how did you get 2500 books catalogued before the end of the world?

[fromward.livejournal.com]

Ooo. Thanks for sharing!

[corinna-5.livejournal.com]

For the widget, try this:

[script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://www.librarything.com/jswidget.php?reporton=rivkat&show=random&num=5&covers=none&header=1&css=1&style=1">
"]
[/script]

with the change to carets from brackets etc.. It's a little glitchy just as a URL without the script instructions around it, it should work OK once you put it in the right package.

Does LibraryThing do the Delicious Monster trick of letting you use your webcam as a barcode scanner? It would get tedious quickly if not.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

We add the nonfiction to Z's homebrewed database every few months, printing out labels every time we have a pageful. I think we'll continue to do that and just use the import feature on LibraryThing to add the new ones. Fiction is currently mostly uncataloged, but I am going to start working on it more seriously in my copious free time.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Ah, but where to put that script? I tried to put the widget in the original post, for example, and it didn't show up; more important, I can't figure out where I'm allowed just to put freefloating text on my journal -- I figured out how to add links, but the widget doesn't work there either.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I forgot -- no, LibraryThing doesn't support webcams, but I don't have a webcam anyway. It does support importation from Delicious Library, which I did -- I paid for DL, but I liked LT enough to pay again. I expect I'll do chunks of data entry slowly over time.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

What do you use the labels for? And if you stick them on the books, what kind do you use?

I tried putting my non-fiction in Library of Cong. catalog order by first two letters (i.e. all HCs together, then alpha by author within HC), but it was kind of a pain because so many of my books don't have LoC info inside them (too new/too old).

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I will have to check with Z -- they may be acid-free, but they look like ordinary address labels, 33 to a page, stuck to the spines of the books (or just to the side of the spine if the book is too thin). We use LoC for nonfiction, in catalog order so topics stay grouped together. If you use Harvard's catalog as the default, you can get an awful lot of LC numbers -- we only have maybe ten that don't have an LC number at all.

[corinna-5.livejournal.com]

What do you mean by it doesn't work there? Do you have access to the HTML of where the links show up? That might be where you want to put it. Try doing it just as an entry that you delete to see if it works....

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

The import function doesn't seem to import any data if you don't have an ISBN, which is of course the one piece of information I never bothered to track. I think I will let more peer pressure accumulate before I convert.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we have a couple hundred without ISBNs, but I've written and asked him to add LoC, which might help, and he might even do it -- he fixed one thing I wrote him about nearly instantly.

[brownbetty]

I think this is why the widget won't work.

Why can't I use scripting languages (such as JavaScript) or embed objects (such as Flash or videos) on LiveJournal?

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Truly my friends list knows all.

[aka-arduinna.livejournal.com]

dunno if you know this, but you're on LibraryThing's front page at the moment *G*:

See how it works

* See users' libraries, like cmoore, moccany or rivkat.

It could be a randomly generated link (you're in the top-25 libraries, but the other two aren't), but I got quite the kick out of seeing a fellow fan listed. (FWIW, I got to LibraryThing from Therienne, back in early October -- she might have been where you first heard it.)

I've already got my collection cataloged on index cards and an Access database (...shutup), but you can never have it in too many places. Plus, all the LoC info right at your fingertips with LibraryThing! This is just the best thing ever.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Our database is homebrewed and doesn't include the fiction, which I'd tried DeliciousLibrary for, but I like the web access of LibraryThing better. I'm not having any luck getting the LoC info for my books; I don't know what's going on there. And I really wish it handled edited books better. They're all bunched at the top of my collection as authorless, and I'd prefer to have the editor in the author field. But in general I'm quite pleased.

[tmelange.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for this heads up. This Library Thing will be much fun..