Switched Keys

Over the past few years I've wanted to find a way to organize my ever growing book library. Last week I stumbled across a tool that will really help. The Library Thing allows you to catalog your books on-line. If it was just something to type all the information for each book I wouldn't be all that impressed. The thing that really sold me on The Library Thing was the ability to search various on-line libraries for a book in my library and click to add it and all the background information to my collection.

You can search libraries like the Library of Congress Amazon and about 80 others. You can search by title author as well as various numbers that books come with nowadays (ISBN LC). The coolest thing about the Library of Congress search is that the record often includes Dewey and LC numbers. I use Dewey (I've always been partial to numbers) and when the record is added from some other library I can search the LC listings for the same subject and use that Dewey number.

Another cool thing about The Library Thing is the ability to share your library and view entries in other people's library. If there are comments you can read what others think about a particular book. And there's more groups talk tags and illustrated covers. That's just an overview. If you like check it out at http://www.librarything.com/. Check out my library at http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dbell154