I started using Librarything to keep myself from buying the same book over again. I'd see something in a bookshop and get excited, and realize when I got home that it wasn't the first (or even second) time I'd gotten excited. Who really needs three copies of Malady of Death? The idea was that I'd have a complete catalog online, and when I got to the bookshop I could look up prospective purchases online on my phone. It turned out that my favorite bookshop is a dead zone. However, just going through and scanning everything in helped reacquaint me with everything I had, which is nice, and helped me see where I have gaps.
What I think Librarything could do but hasn't yet done, for me, is help me figure out what other writers I could be reading. If somebody likes a lot of the same writers as I do, maybe the names I don't recognize in their library are worth checking out? I think that hasn't yet happened in part because I know I have listed a lot of stuff I don't endorse -- books given to me by other people, which I thought were awful, but which I scanned in anyway because using a barcode scanner is fun.
Also, like anything else, there could probably be a social element. However, I have found so far that I don't really like people whose taste in books is a lot like mine. They're often kind of nasty. It reminds me of the Lynda Barry comic, "Do you really want to find yourself?" which depicts a woman gazing into a hand mirror in which is written YOU ARE A JERK. |
