LibraryThing: MySpace For Books?

Remember the naysayers of years past who said that computers would kill books?  The ones who said that Ray Bradbury’s apocalyptic visions in Fahrenheit 451 would come to pass?  Yeah, I don’t remember them, either; I don’t run in those circles.  But if those people ever did really exist, they are being proven wrong by a new killer app:  LibraryThing.

Think of LibraryThing as kind of a MySpace for bookworms; users enter their libraries into a website database for personal use or to share with others.  As of this writing, the site catalogs over 3.3 million titles, the most popular of which are fantasy and science fiction titles, with J.K. Rowling’s books topping the list.  Users who already have their libraries in databases (we know you’re out there, you bibliophiles) can import their books in one fell swoop or export a database to a file.  Imagine being a bookseller whose inventory is on this system; you could check availability of a particular book from just about anywhere, even your mobile phone.

The service allows users to enter up to 200 titles into the database for free.  Beyond that, there are two options:  1) pay for unlimited service at the rate of $10.00 per year, or 2) pay for a lifetime unlimited account for only $25.

(Thanks, Jason Musgrave!)

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