Tuesday Thingers
May. 28th, 2008 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julesjonesThis week's prompt: "how many books do you have cataloged in your LibraryThing account? How do you decide what to include- everything you have, everything you've read - and are there things you leave off?"
Right now I've got 907 books catalogued. My default is that if I own it and it's a book-like object, it gets catalogued. I've now catalogued most of the books I currently have physical access to (a lot are in storage), and I usually add books to the catalogue as soon as I acquire them.
"Getting rid of books" was not part of my worldview until recently, but I'm facing up to the fact that I need to be realistic about whether I will read a book again. As I dispose of books, I'm going to leave them in my LT catalogue, but tag them as disposed of (probably with an annotation as to how they were disposed of). If nothing else, I want a record of the fact that I once owned the book and was willing to part with it, so that I don't accidentally buy another copy.
So far I haven't added books that I've read but never owned. My original reason for getting a LibraryThing account was to have a catalogue of my book collection for insurance purposes, so what I wanted was an accurate record of books that I owned, or had owned but no longer did. And I haven't read many books that weren't my personal property in the two years I've had a LibraryThing account -- something to do with an excellent second-hand bookshop being closer than local library at the time I started the account. But I've been writing reviews of the few library books that I have borrowed, and I'd like to post the reviews on LT; plus it would be useful to have those books in my catalogue to feed into the various useful social networking features. So I may start adding "read but not owned" books, suitably tagged. I might have done so already, but I wanted to wait for the long-promised collections feature.
So far I haven't left off anything, but I did think long and hard about some of the books I've bought for writing research. They're not books I really want to have conversations about with workmates and family... If collections ever happen, they may end up in a private collection.
Index post for the blogring's responses to this week's prompt.
Right now I've got 907 books catalogued. My default is that if I own it and it's a book-like object, it gets catalogued. I've now catalogued most of the books I currently have physical access to (a lot are in storage), and I usually add books to the catalogue as soon as I acquire them.
"Getting rid of books" was not part of my worldview until recently, but I'm facing up to the fact that I need to be realistic about whether I will read a book again. As I dispose of books, I'm going to leave them in my LT catalogue, but tag them as disposed of (probably with an annotation as to how they were disposed of). If nothing else, I want a record of the fact that I once owned the book and was willing to part with it, so that I don't accidentally buy another copy.
So far I haven't added books that I've read but never owned. My original reason for getting a LibraryThing account was to have a catalogue of my book collection for insurance purposes, so what I wanted was an accurate record of books that I owned, or had owned but no longer did. And I haven't read many books that weren't my personal property in the two years I've had a LibraryThing account -- something to do with an excellent second-hand bookshop being closer than local library at the time I started the account. But I've been writing reviews of the few library books that I have borrowed, and I'd like to post the reviews on LT; plus it would be useful to have those books in my catalogue to feed into the various useful social networking features. So I may start adding "read but not owned" books, suitably tagged. I might have done so already, but I wanted to wait for the long-promised collections feature.
So far I haven't left off anything, but I did think long and hard about some of the books I've bought for writing research. They're not books I really want to have conversations about with workmates and family... If collections ever happen, they may end up in a private collection.
Index post for the blogring's responses to this week's prompt.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-28 11:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-28 12:01 pm (UTC)The one class of book-like object I've left off my LT so far is fanzines. This is partly pragmatic, as I'd have had to enter everything manually, and I didn't have time to do more than frantically shove in ISBNs of the commercially published material before packing for the move last year. But I also wasn't entirely sure about publicly cataloguing things that perhaps should stay under the radar. They're currently all in boxes in storage, so it's a moot point for now. But if collections have appeared by the time I can get at the stored material, they may appear in a collection locked down to a select audience.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-28 09:09 pm (UTC)Also there are quite a number of books in this house which we're not entirely sure whether they're Sis's or mine (hey, we've both been collecting for a couple of decades at least, and she probably has as many as me, and... we don't have memories)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-28 09:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-28 09:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-30 03:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-30 07:50 am (UTC)