For a long time I’ve looked for a website that could catalog my book collection. I wanted something where I could easily import the books, but with the power to edit the metadata if I chose. The emphasis of the site had to be cataloging, but social features would be nice too. And the site had to work with any book, not just the latest vampire thriller. I tried GoodReads, Shelfari, and the my library section of Google Books, and they were all useless. I finally found the application that I liked: LibraryThing.

LibraryThing is very powerful at cataloging—so powerful that some libraries use it as their catalog. I’ve added something like 350 of my books so far. I enter the ISBN or title of the book, LibraryThing searches a library catalog of my choice (usually the Library of Congress), and imports the book into my catalog. From there, I can edit the metadata and change the cover. Maybe the single greatest feature of LibraryThing is it’s concept of a work, as opposed to specific editions. For example, I can link to a work page, which includes all the editions of that book.

LibraryThing’s cataloging tools would be powerful enough, but they have some interesting social tools too. For example, the top-three books that I share with other people are The Riverside Shakespeare, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.

LibraryThing gets both Web 2.0 and Library 2.0.