Task #9: Cook Book organization... It can be as easy as pie!

Library Lady says: A well organized (cook) book collection is the key to a happy kitchen. 

You're right. I'm drowning in a sea of cookbooks! I can't keep track of which I've read, which I haven't, which I lent to Judy down the street, which has that award-winning brownie recipe in it...

*sigh*

I need them organized, but it's too much. I don't know where to start...

You're not alone! Lots of people have difficulty keeping track of the books they've read--be they cookbooks, paperbacks, your favorite romance novels, that mystery series you're trying to read in order, your son's comic book collection... 

Yes! That's it exactly! I've read so many great books over the years, and encountered so many great reads, but I can never remember their titles. There are simply too many to count...

Then you've come to the right place! I'm positive LibraryThing is just the site for you!

†LibraryThing is a cataloging website, designed to help you organize your personal reading lists easily, by way of hundreds of different international sources (including the Library of Congress, all five national Amazon sites, and more than 600 world libraries.) And because members organize their books online, LibraryThing takes advantage of various other Web 2.0 tools--connecting people with similar books, deriving suggestions for what to read next (or what not to read!), providing author reviews, and much much more.

Adding books to your catalogue is as simple as creating a user name and password, and entering the titles of your books into the search box. But there are lots of other ways to use LibraryThing beyond the actual organizing and cataloguing!

LibraryThing is an amazing social space too, often described as "the Facebook for books". Because everyone catalogues online, they also catalogue together. LibraryThing connects people based on the books they share.

You can check out other user's libraries, see who has the a similar library to yours, and swap reading suggestions. You can review books, add tags, and rate your selections. You can view your books on a virtual shelf, add a widget (a button or a drop-down list) to your blog, or install a LibraryThing Search box on your blog. And with over 1,000,000 users and 40 million books in the system, you'll find some "eerily similar" libraries. 

Ooo... I can tell already I'm going to love this task... 

Your Task 

To complete this assignment: 

1. Sign up for a LibraryThing account. 

2. Click on Add Books and create a bibliography of at least five books you've read and enjoyed, and that you'd recommend to a friend.

3. Once you've added five titles to your catalog, click Profile and copy the link to your library (pictured below)

Please note: copy the URL for your library, not the URL to your profile...) 

4. Go to your blog. Sign in. Start a new post and paste into your post the link to your LibraryThing account. Visitors to your blog (like me!) will be able to click on your link to view your LibraryThing catalogue. 

5. Answer the following questions:

• What did you think of LibraryThing?
• Is this a tool you'll use again? 

6. Click Publish Post. 

For the teacher's pet: Add a LibraryThing widget to your blog like the widget I have for Web 2.0 books on the Betty Blogger blog!

From the Profile tab, click on Widgets in the upper right hand corner. Cut and paste the catalogue HTML code (pictured below) into your blog post.

Please note: You'll have to click on the Edit Html tab in your blog post to insert the HTML code.

A widget will show your blog visitors what you're reading now, random books from your collection, pictures of the books in your catalogue, etc.

† Research from About LibraryThing.

Images courtesy of DigModern. 

Further Reading:
Schubert, Siri. "Building a Better Book Club". Business 2.0. Apr2007, Vol. 8 Issue 3, p50-51, 2p, 1 graph, 2c.

Note: BPL Cardholders: Visit our database page. Choose MasterFile Premier from the appropriate list. Enter your BPL library card number. Search for the title above.


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