I had fun setting up my LibraryThing library and will probably continue to add titles.
That being said, I've been using LibraryThing as a Readers' Advisory tool for a while now. What works great for that purpose is the list of books suggested. So if a customer tells me they liked Richard Russo's Empire Falls I search that in LibraryThing and see what other books are suggested based on those who've listed Empire Falls in their library. Explaining it takes far more time then the actual searching and when I use the results in conjunction with other resources, it works very well. I find it especially useful when I'm looking up books I'm not familiar with. Invariably, I'll find a title or author I am familiar with in the results list.
Where it doesn't work as well is with the lesser known works or with authors who've got a lot of books under their belt. For the latter the lists will end up containing many of the author's other works and that isn't helpful if I'm looking for further reading.
And while I find the Unsuggester fun the most practical use I can find for it is to use it as something to show customers to get conversation started. And if I were Queen of the Publishing World this is the book I'd provide for LT novices.
3 comments:
Clever book cover! I browsed your library - that is the most fun, seeing what other folks love. I'm a big fan of the Grand Sophy, too.
Ah, The Grand Sophy... I've always wished it would get the Jane Austen treatment and be made into a great movie.
Hi Veronica,
Great book cover! I love it! I also have been using LibraryThing for over a year now and have over 500 books in my catalog: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/pandalibrarian. That's not to say that I own or have read all of these, but mostly I use it to keep track of the books I read in a year. Check out my 2007 Book List tag for this year's titles.
So far, we only have one title in common - but hope to see more of your titles!
I've used LT for reader's advisory, too - often to jog my memory of recent titles that I've read.
Also, the LT link in your second paragraph goes to the wrong site - I think there's an extra "s" in the link.
Keep on playing!
Jean
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