Organize Your Book List

Tired of trying to remember what books you have read? Sick of carrying around scraps of paper with titles you want to read? There are a few new websites that allow you to list all of your books (books you've read, books you want to read, books you own, etc.). The sites allow you to save titles in a spreadsheet-style format and show pictures of the covers. You can "tag" and rate each book as well. Tags are descriptive terms that you choose to help you identify and sort your books. These sites are also social networking sites, which means you can see what other people are reading, look at other readers' tags, write and share reviews, and participate in on-line discussions about books. The great thing is that you can access this information from any Internet connection, so you don't have to carry around a bunch of lists anymore!

LibraryThing is probably one of the most well-known sites. You can catalog up to 200 books for free, but a one-time fee of $25 will give you a lifetime subscription and allow you an unlimited number of books. Shelfari and GoodReads are similar to LibraryThing. Both are completely free and allow you to include as many books as you wish.

I started using LibraryThing first. I like the layout and find it easy to use, but they only allow you to create one "shelf" or list. I wanted to create a list of books I have already read and a separate list of books that I want to read, but could not do this with LibraryThing. GoodReads does have this option, but I don't like the layout as much as LibraryThing. While all of these sites are social sites, it seems that Shelfari and GoodReads pushes the social aspect more, encouraging "Friends" like a MySpace account. So for now, I'm using both LibraryThing and GoodReads, but I am hoping that LibraryThing will develop the option for multiple "shelves."