A Wrinkle in Tech

After trying and not liking Shelfari very much (except for it’s wish list feature, which prevents family members from giving me really boring fiction for Christmas), I find LibraryThing to be tremendously useful.  Granted, I think it’s more useful to me personally than professionally, but I can definitely see some professional advantages.

For one, I’m a newer librarian, and I’m not as well-read in the “classics” of children’s literature as I feel I should be.  Half the time, I don’t even know what else to read and just browse the shelves of my local library for something that catches my eye.  LibraryThing has those great recommendations in the social information section…which leads to more and more books that I find interesting and want to read.

I can also appreciate the member reviews…because let’s face it, sometimes the professional journals can’t tell us if the kids are going to like it or not.  So finding what “real people,” our potential patrons, think is valuable information.

Another feature I really like over Shelfari is that all of the different editions and covers are in ONE LibraryThing “record” for the most part.  It makes adding books so much easier!

Finally, the only downside I can find…I still can’t get the widget to work on WordPress…something to work on for later.