Thing 11: Folksonomies: LibraryThing

I feel a strong pull in two directions: on the one hand, there's Goodreads, on the other, LibraryThing. I have committed myself to Goodreads: many of my friends are on Goodreads, and Goodreads has much the same functionality as LibraryThing. The biggest difference (that I have discerned thus far) is the tagging.

I'm sure this victimless war (Goodreads versus LibraryThing) will go on for some time, until I realize that it's not that big a deal which of these sites I stick with for the time being.

While I will continue using Goodreads to document my personal reading habits, I must say that I am really enjoying LibraryThing from a professional perspective (I am nothing if not a professional). I have played with Danbury Public Library's catalog, and I think the incorporation of LibraryThing and tagging is wonderfully helpful. I really like giving patrons the opportunity to create their own subject headings. Because, as it has been pointed out, LCSH is a bit...stodgy...out of touch...even offensive at times.

I searched for The English Patient. (I'm not completely hoity-toity, I read trashy stuff, too.)



Overall, the tags are far more descriptive than the subject headings in Cruzcat. All Cruzcat can tell me is that this book is: Historical Fiction, a War Story, and World War 1939-1945--Fiction.

LibraryThing gives me so much more: 20th century; Africa; Booker; desert; Egypt; Canadian author; Italy; literary fiction; movie tie-in; romance; WWII. I like that the size of the tags also tells me the relative weight of the descriptor. Plus, with the recommendations, I can gauge whether I'm likely to enjoy this novel.

Ultimately, LibraryThing gives me a much richer description of the book.