I’m actually not planning on doing much reading today. I finished one book, and I want to make sure that I write its review before I start anything else, just so that it’s fresher.
Instead, I am cataloguing, over at LibraryThing.
I love cataloguing.
It just appeals to me all over. I like putting things in order. I like comparing my library with those of others. I like organizing and tagging books, and hunting down their correct covers and edition information. I like seeing the number of books I’ve done go up on my profile. I like finding the books I share with only one other person on LibraryThing, and keeping track of other library-ish statistics. I like handling all of the books, and using ISBN numbers, and being the only person in the house who knows more or less where every book lives. I like looking at my Author Gallery.
Ijust plain enjoy it all.
It’s my goal to catalogue every single book that we own. That’s a lot of books; I’ve already done just over 1,400 and there are at least that many left to do. Probably closer to 2,000 (my best guess). We’re book people, you see.
And this has been enough of a break — back I go!
(As of publication, the number of catalogued books stands at 1,430. We’ll see how much further I can get by the end of the day).
I know exactly how you feel! I’ve been spending a lot of time this week cataloging at LibraryThing, too. Haven’t even made a dent in our collection yet, but it IS so satisfying. I’m really just a frustrated librarian at heart. Happy cataloging!
I had such fun cataloging my books into LibraryThing when I first joined. I was worried it would be too much of a burden, but it turned out to be quite fun. I found books I’d completely forgotten about and a couple of times my husband and I even got into a discussion of which book came into our library by whom. Neither of us wanted to claim one of them. Haha
Enjoy your week!
I love spending tie at Library Thing too. I’m always looking for other people who share my tastes and who are also bloggers. You never know when you might fin a new friend.
See, I haven’t started Library Thing yet, since I know that I will be obsessive and never stop.
Wow that’s a lot of books! I started cataloging mine at Nobii but it was a bit of a fad – i signed up for Library Thing but couldn’t really get my head round it and couldn’t spare the time to learn. I think for now the reading and blogging about reading is taking up enough time
Maybe one day I’ll get to cataloging too…
i love LibraryThing!!! I love putting books on there and organizing them…very fun.
I am signed up with a couple of sites like that and I haven’t started even listing current reads because I am overwhelmed by the number of books I go through and the number I own! I identify with the love of cataloguing though. When I was little, I used to occasionally take all the books off my bookshelves and reorganize them – alphabetically, by color, by size, by subject, by how I felt about them, et cetera – and put them all back on for another few months. It was a way of dealing with a lot of chaos in my everyday life… here was something neat and organized that I could control in every single imaginable way. I should blog about this!
I too find the cataloguing aspects of LT totally addictive. It has been so useful to me in so many ways over the last few years, and besides, it was an excellent excuse to revisit all the books I own but had forgotten. Would that I could take a few years off work and just read for pleasure (and catalogue, of course)!
Yes yes! Entering books and then figuring out what to tag them became a compulsion for a while. I haven’t got all my books entered yet but I have taken a little break. Handling all those books gave me a big hankering to actually READ.
BTW, as I try the recipes in Slurp I am finding they all need some tweaking or appear to be missing ingredients. I was initially pleased but am becoming disappointed. But I will keep it around as a beautiful idea book.
Thanks for the comments, all. I’m glad I’m not the only one who enjoys cataloguing!
I have recently been re-tagging and re-organizing a lot of my books, because I have been using LibraryThing differently than I used to. I saw your post in the “Other Ways to Get ARCs” thread and thought I’d check out your blog. Love it!
Thanks, Devourer — I’m glad that you enjoy it