And the Award goes to... Library Thing!

I have to fess up about my predisposed bias towards library thing. A friend at work told me a little about it, so when I saw it on the site I decided to give it a try. I loved it. It's basically a site where users can create their own personal libraries and find other users who like the same kind of books and topics, etc. One of the things that I liked about the site offhand? They don't ask you for a personal biography and password in order for you to join, more like just a username and password. Another thing I loved about the site was how easy it is to navigate around it. They don't throw a million things out at you on the first page so that you're completely overwhelmed, they keep it nice and simple. Beyond that the site lets avid readers do so many things. You are able to join discussion groups on various topics, you can find different blogs, you create your own library (up to 200 books free)...I know I'm not being particularly eloquent or specific with my site but it is one of those sites that you have to see for yourself in order to get it. One of the things I loved while exploring, was looking up my favorite authors and being able to see their most recent work. I didn't have to go through obscure involved links to get to them, they just came up in the regular search. Alright I am struggling with explaining this site in a way that does it justice, so let me just go ahead and tell you how I think it could be used in a library setting. I don't know how this would be possible, but I think it would be cool if when a patron entered an item, tag, author, title, into the search bar on one of our library computers if an entire library clearly showing all of the books came up. It would be different from the first one in that it would automatically reference every book that is in the VBPL database and it would offer a wider wealth of information about a particular book they may happen to look up. It is also a good way to connect with book fanatics. Wait I said that. I know- for someone who loves reading, I sure am stumbling over my words tonight. I can't be on my "A" game everyday. Librarything sure is though