Web 2.0 for Bibliophiles

Addictive LibraryThing Aids Search for Western Books

By Jenny Shank, 7-24-06

	Caption: Image courtesy of LibraryThing.com.

I am obsessive about the organization of my book collection--I keep my bookshelves divided into alphabetized sections such as literature, travel, science, and art. I subdivide the literature into country of origin of the writer, which leads to some judgment calls--for example, I put Oscar Wilde in the Irish literature section instead of the British because the Brits threw him in jail, which led to his demise, so Ireland gets credit for him, in my view. When I heard about LibraryThing, an online book cataloguing site, you can bet all my obsessive-compulsive tendencies flared up. LibraryThing allows users to enter the books that they own or that they've been meaning to read, creating an online catalogue of their libraries. You can also label your book collection with tags, add a star rating and a review, then search to determine who else shares your taste in books and get recommendations for future reading. Cataloguing the first 200 books is free, and after that, it costs $10 a year or only $25 for a lifetime account. It's great fun to play around with LibraryThing's search tools, and lately I've been using it to search for Western reading material.

A search of the tag "Montana" (used 235 times) turns up a number of familiar and respected writers, including Ivan Doig, Judy Blunt, Rick Bass and Claire Davis. The "New Mexico" tag (used 250 times) includes books by John Nichols and Willa Cather. The "Colorado" tag has been used more often (338 times), but it's little less diverse--most people that use this tag are cataloguing their collection of Diana Mott Davidson mysteries, though a couple of other writers, such as Kent Haruf and Ralph Moody, turn up. A search of the tag "American West" (used 474 times) turns up a number of interesting books, including Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert, Theodore Roosevelt's The Winning of the West, and University of Colorado professor Patricia Limerick's The Legacy of Conquest. No one else but me has used the tag "Interior West," and only one other person has used the tag "Rocky Mountain West." The tag "West" is popular among readers of Don Coldsmith, who writes a series of historical fiction that features the Indians of the Great Plains. The books most often tagged "Old West" include Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West by Dale L. Morgan, Doc Holliday by Jim Myers, and Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende.

The beauty of LibraryThing is that the more people that use it, the more useful it becomes, so I am doing my part to add more "Western" and "Colorado" titles to my catalogue in the hopes that others will share their picks in these categories. [End of article]

I love LibraryThing, too! I'm using it to track my "to read" list as well as things I've already read. Have you had any luck with the recommendations (based on what you've read, similar tags, or "special sauce")?

Thanks Jennifer. So far, most of the recommendations that I'm getting are for other books I've already read and enjoyed but haven't yet entered into LibraryThing. So I guess they're good recommendations since I've enjoyed those books, but it's not giving me many obscure suggestions--that's probably because these tools are based on the popularity of the titles.

LibraryThing can be quite a useful tool for organization of your library, but for recommendations of obtuse titles and rare accounts of western topics, a good old low tech approach is often the best tool: contact your local independent bookseller! We can recommend books that'll knock your spurs off and expand your horizons in ways that you'd never dreamed.----Margie Wilson, Grand Junction aka UpperCrustBooks

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I spent an age uploading my books onto <a >bookarmy</a> and now i've just discovered LT! I'm wondering if there's a way of just transfering my lists over ( I doubt it, and i'll probably secretly enjoy uploading them all again anyway :D).

Library thing I don't really use - bookarmy i do have a profile on. However the site I'm most active on is one for parents called <a >gurgle - pregnancy and parenting</a> - it's a great site that's easy to use and so i can deal with it! myface and spacebook are things i can't really handle!!!!

that didn't seem to work - i'll try gurgle. Sorry if it doesn't work!