LibraryThing

I chose to set up an account in LibraryThing rather than Goodreads only because:

a) LibraryThing claims to be "the world's largest book club." If I'm going to do this online book stuff, baby, then I'm going to do it up BIG!!!

b) The instructions were shorter, and I don't have much time.

I've figured out some basics of adding, reviewing and rating books for my LibraryThing "library" through trial and error. I do wish some things were a little clearer. For instance, there are two icons that seem to lead you to the exact same editing page (one looks like a rolodex card, the other is a pencil).

As an old-timer, I have mixed feelings about tagging. Yes, it's very useful to be able to search for books (or photos, videos, etc) using combinations of tags. But to be really effective, the tags people attach to the item need to be well-chosen. And thorough. When tagging the book "Touching the Void," I realized that to maximize its findability, I would need to use multiple tags for a single concept: mountain climbing, mountain climbers, moutaineering, mountaineers, etc. Library cataloguers address this issue by using standardized headings. I'm thinking that online tagging could possibly evolve to where a single tag could automatically link with other synonymous tags, so that if you tag a book "mountaineering" all those other tags will be searched as well. Maybe it already does this, and I just haven't noticed? Maybe later on I'll have a chance to explore this...

Anyway, here's a link to my profile on LibraryThing:
http://www.librarything.com/profile/lunamonty