02.21.07

While I’m thinking about books

Posted in Books, Tech at 8:04 pm by Cavorter

Does anyone have any thoughts about GuruLib, Shelfari, and LibraryThing?

So far I think GuruLib has both the best feature (list books borrowed from a library using information pulled directly from the library’s database) and the absolute worst interface. OMG does it suck.

Shelfari OTOH has a really beautiful and, more importantly, functional interface but lacks a good way to mark books that you have read but do not own. Adding the item to your “Reading List” does not count.

LibraryThing’s interface is right about the dead center between the polar opposites of the other two and I cannot find any way to list books that I have only read but do not own.

I could swear there was a fourth site that does similar things to these three, but I can’t seem to remember it. Any pointers to similar sites or comments about these would be greatly appreciated.

No tag for this post.

Related posts

  • No related posts.

3 Comments

  1. mike lewis said,

    February 22, 2007 at 10:01 am

    I’ve been using both shelfari and LibraryThing for the past few months. I like shelfari’s interface and widget but LibraryThing is faster and lets you arrange how you view your own library. Shelfari’s speed really gets me down. Neither of them have good social features (checking out other’s books) nor sharing.

    Basically, i think it’s best to go with LibraryThing for the long term as it is more powerful and useful.

  2. Itty Bitty Rants » Too bad about the name, but… said,

    March 17, 2007 at 5:05 am

    [...] pointed me to another social book site that I think might fit my needs a bit better than the other three that I’ve played with so far: [...]

  3. Cavorter said,

    March 17, 2007 at 5:06 am

    Unfortunately I just couldn’t get into LibraryThing. The interface was kind of driving me nuts. I did find something else today though.