Thing #16

LibraryThing I'll admit I was skeptical when i first started reading about Library Thing on the learning 2.0 - 23 Things website. "I get all the information I want on books by searching on Amazon.com," I thought to myself. After searching around for several minutes, I found that my initial assumption about LibraryThing was wrong. I really enjoyed using the website after I worked with it for several minutes. A self-proclaimed bookophile, I couldn't help but get swept away in the many offerings from this website. I typed in the name of a silly little vampire series I'm reading (not the Twilight books--I already read all of those) and was quickly taken to the author's page where all her books were listed with cover pictures. I was also able to see and better understand where two different strands of the vampire series branch off. Yes, I can see all of this on amazon.com, but not as easily. I really have to search through the findings on amazon to find which books is the first, second, etc., in a series. LibraryThings had it all laid out for me. I also liked the recommendations feature. I found several books that I am interested in reading just from the few minutes I spent searching the recommendations list.

I think the recommendations list and author's page would be of particular interest to students. Students, the age I teach, don't think about "reading through an author" like I do. They read one book by an author and think they have to move on to something completely different. I think they would like searching for an author they enjoyed and finding a comprehensive list of other titles by the same author.