It's A LibraryThing

A while back, Franklin, was extolling the virtues of an online cataloguing system called LibraryThing. Basically it provides you with a place to keep track of your books. Duh. Simply enter the ISBN number of your book and it looks for it either in Amazon or the Library of Congress, returns the book in question, then you click on the link and it adds the book to your online library. Very simple.

I like to read and I've acquired a few books over the years. I've never had the desire to catalogue them though. But being unemployed does strange things to one's mind. Why, I could pretend I'd gotten a job as a librarian and enter in all my books, I thought to myself last Monday. I only have about 150 or so. And it would sharpen my data entry skills. You don't want to let the ol' data entry skills go, that's for sure.

Not only that, but you could enter up to 200 books FOR FREE. What a deal. I could indulge my obsessive compulsive tendencies and not have to pay a cent. I was practically delirious. First, I would start with the books in the bedroom. Just to sort of ease into my new job as "Head Librarian Of Chez Insanity."

Three hours later, I was still in the bedroom and had input the quota for my free account. Apparently I have been in some kind of literary denial. Where had all these books come from? And I was beginning to notice a disturbing trend. One of the cool things about LibraryThing is that you can tag your books so that you can get an overview of how many books you have in a particular category. Which has led me to wonder why I seem to be so fascinated with memoirs written by recovering alcoholics. I also have 54 books on the topic of "Writing." Perhaps I'm grooming myself to become the next Ernest Hemingway.

Thankfully, I have 38 self help books. So if I start to slide off the rails I'll know how to get back on. My library also contains 25 books on "Tropical Fish." Very useful when you've got a five gallon tank with 3 platies in it. Which apparently are all the same sex since I've yet to have any babies from them. I guess I must have missed the many chapters on fish anatomy.

I've finally finished entering all my books. Not to mention upgrading my account because there are actually *cough* 509 *cough* books in my apartment.