Probably not the best use of my limited time but I decided to catalog my books as I packed them, something I've been wanting to do for several years now. I kept reading good reviews of Library Thing so I created an account there, paid $25 for the lifetime membership, and began what has been a long process of entering each of my books into the database. The routine goes something like this: search for the book on Amazon, find the edition that I have, click on the little applet/link on my browser toolbar, enter tags for the book, repeat again and again and again. I finished the bulk of the work this weekend, with only a few books remaining to be entered but not until I'm ready to put them in the boxes that will actually travel with me, in other words, my TBR pile.
Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the results. You can see my collection here or view the "author cloud" version of my tags. I've also added a widget to the left column of Syntax of Things which shows random books from my library (refresh the page to see them change). I really like the fact that I now have a working database of my library, including the ability to search and sort and even download a spreadsheet of what I own. I know that the folks at Library Things have plans to tweak the tools that are currently available in order to make the process even easier, but as it is now, it's a good site and one that I highly recommend if you're looking for an affordable way to catalog your library.
And if you get bored while compiling your data, you can always create little games, such as the one that I came up with. As I entered my books, shelf by dusty shelf, I began to monitor the "shared" data on my catalog page. I tried to guess which book in my collection would end up being the most owned at Library Thing? Early on, Jane Eyre took the lead and it looked as if it would be the winner. Then, not surprisingly, The Catcher in the Rye soared to the top and never relinquished that position. Jane Eyre, a book I didn't even know I owned, settled for second, and Catch 22 and Animal Farm tied third. The top twenty turned out to be pretty predictable but there were some surprises. I've listed them below with the number of people who own them in parenthesis following the title.
1. The Catcher in the Rye (1,195 out of 28,785 users)
2. Jane Eyre (914)
3. (tie) Catch 22 (804)
3. (tie) Animal Farm (804)
5. Life of Pi (783)
6. Fahrenheit 451 (725)
7. The Stranger (688)
8. On the Road (640)
9. Mere Christianity (630)
10. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (611)
11. Ulysses (593)
12. Me Talk Pretty One Day (592)
13. The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings (574)
14. Moby-Dick (567)
15. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (566)
16. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (541)
17. The Bell Jar (522)
18. The Prince (506)
19. Middlesex (469)
20. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (459)
Three thoughts:
I hope the rest of the packing is going well. Are you boxing books alphabetically, by topic, or in some other grouping? Or are you reduced at last to getting them boxed in watever damn order?
Posted by: Cynthia Closkey | March 21, 2006 at 10:02 AM
I, too, am extremely jealous of this. I'm calculating the amount of vacation time I've got against just how freakin' long it would take me to organize my own collection.
Also I've got to read "Life of Pi," apparently.
Posted by: TJ | March 21, 2006 at 12:11 PM
I am also jealous. But hey, what if your books are out of print, foreign, or for some other reason not on amazon? You might be in possession of an enormous stack of second rate Victorian erotica, for example, or several thousand Norwegian comic novels. I know I am.
Posted by: john barlow | March 21, 2006 at 12:21 PM
Cindy, procrastination is a well-practiced art in my house.
TJ, outsource it, my friend.
John, you can enter your Victorian erotica and stuff manually.
Posted by: Jeff | March 21, 2006 at 07:14 PM