Library Thing: virtual bookclub
Just a moment ago I reviewed Reader2 (a folksonomy for books) and now here’s another one, Library Thing (free version only allows 200 items).
Besides all the regular features, and functionality this one has images, comments, profile page, and LOC card catalogue for each item where available.
There is a “preferences” link to change these header settings in your user account, eg. you can choose from more fields like ISBN, summary, subject, call no….and these can be aligned left to right in any order….very versatile for personal use!
…beware that if you don’t have a “cover” column you can’t link to a native website eg. Amazon, as the Images have the links and not the Titles.
Also has an A-Z or Z-A sorting function by:
User (homepage only)
Title
Author
Date
Tags
Search function is simple and effective (where’s the fielded search, we’re talking a library catalogue here).
Also print a list.
Home page
Link to the native page via the image
Link to a user
Link to a tag
User page
Link to the native page via the image
Link to a tag
Lacks linking to an author from bookmarks in the Home page or User account, need to browse the Statistics page”.
From this page you can view link lists to:
Most recent users
Users with the largest libraries
Entire library
Most popular tags
Most popular books
Most popular authors
(but you can’t get complete lists, there is no “see all” link)
If you look at a users tag page, it will say who else used that tag, but seems to be lacking who else bookmarked the same page as you (then again this is tricky as someone might point to a URL at Amazon and someone might point to a URL at another bookseller…actually in this folksonomy the native links seem to all go to Amazon, so this wouldn’t be a problem after all)
The URL feature would be good as you could also implement a running thread of comments on a book, add also a ratings function…this would act kind of like a book club, why not add a groups feature so you can be part of a real virtual book club.
Adding an item
I don’t find this screen very clear, but I worked out if I enter an ISBN in the search term field it automatically fills in all the data in the fields, kind of similar to CiteULike or Connotea.
If you enter a search term like: lord of the rings it will bring up a list to choose from, so if LOC hasn’t indexed the book then you can’t add it (seems restrictive, not sure if I’m correct)…you can also search by other fields (manual search) to locate a book.
Seems to lack RSS feeds (hopefully coming soon)
…also if I find something I like on the Home page or wherever, there is no way to copy that item into my library (as far as I can see).
The About page points to a similar site called bibliophil (seems to work on ratings more than tags).
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I also have been developing a collection manager application. It’s currently in beta at : listal.com. I would be interested to know what you think.
Comment by Tom — September 3, 2005 @ 2:17 pm