Three or four years ago a friend was really excited because she'd discovered software that allowed her to catalogue her books at home - this was software that she bought and offered to me on disc so that I might do the same (I didn't). At the time I didn't because the prospect of cataloguing books at home made me want to lie down - too many, couldn't see the point. Yes, a catalogue might stop us from buying the same book again but when I compared the cost of duplicating a purchase with the hours of work there was no contest - I'd happily give any duplicate to a friend!
LibraryThing is a great advance on the software application my friend bought - it is free, it is easy to use (certainly for current publications), and it places your catalogue in a communal space that someone else maintains. Does it make me more inclined to catalogue our books - no.
Maybe if we had a very specialised library that would be useful to share I would catalogue the books. Maybe that would also encourage me to catalogue them for insurance purposes. In a public library setting if you had a resident with a specialist library who was prepared to lend her/his books to other library members that might save you from purchasing a book that otherwise you would not. I don't know...
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Lucylearning
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1 comment:
I couldn't think of anything worse than going home after a day in the library to begin cataloguing....I'm definately not a cataloguer!
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