Librarything might be useful after all!

I will admit I didn't want to get involved with Librarything. I don't really want to take the time to catalog my personal library or maintain said catalog online. (Maybe it's because I spend a lot of time cataloging new books at the library!)

So I begrudgingly created a Librarything account just so I could fulfill my assignment. I started entering a stack of childrens' books, thinking it would help me remember what I own. Then the light bulb turned on!! I deleted my entries and began again in a new direction.

As a teen library specialist, I've been trying to find an easy way to keep track of the YA books I have read. I've wanted to organize reviews and descriptions of these books, along with my own opinions, and make this information readily available to teen patrons at my library. Voila!! Librarything to the rescue!

So my Librarything "shelf" includes YA books I have read within the past year. I don't have all of them listed yet by any means. But I have begun... I hope to create a way to share this list with my teens via our website. A work in progress to be sure.....

Now, LibraryThing is a huge database. There may be other websites more suited to sharing smaller booklists. But I will experiment with LibraryThing for now and see what it can do for me.

The Suggester was interesting. I dislike the Amazon suggestions, so the LibraryThing option is refreshing: based on reading preferences and not just purchasing preferences. I actually used the Suggester to add books to my catalog. Many YA books seem to be inter-related, so every time I entered a title for a book I had read, I would find more titles that belonged on my list, so all I had to do was click on the link! I'm always looking for timesavers!!

You can see my short but ever-growing list by clicking here: PJ's List of YA books