Well I like Library Thing.
I liked the speed with which you could build up a collection because of the imported data. I liked the look and feel of the site. It feels uncluttered but that in no way compromises the complexity of the data it can hold. I like the idea of following a link to librarys flagged as containing the same books as mine because I hope a person with similar tastes might have listed something which I would be interested in too.
I can't really answer the question about whether my library could use Library thing as I am an archivist just along for the ride! I can see how it might be of use to small libraries and in fact the subject of archival cataloguing software for small archives is a regular subject on the archival listservs. One of the recently developed open source systems is: http://ica-atom.org/
but there is nothing out there with the broad appeal of LibraryThing. I guess the main differences are:
the number of people that have extensive personal collections of books is much higher than extensive personal archives
that the ability to draw in data from elsewhere (e.g. Amazon) can't really apply to archives which are unique… it would take much longer to build data up and I myself was pleased by the immediate nature of LibraryThing
and, following on from my last, people like to know what they have in common with each other - a sense of belonging, a pack mentality?!
... interesting.
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