# GoodReads, Shelfari, LibraryThing question



## Wheezie (Oct 28, 2008)

It seems that so many of these types of sites are popping up and I am confused with the differences. Does anyone know the main differences and pros/cons of each. 
Thank you-


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## busy91 (Feb 27, 2009)

My fav site is Goodreads, but they all serve a function. I use Library Thing mainly for a visual library, where as I use Goodreads for connecting with other readers, it is more interactive. Shelfari I am a member of, but don't really use it much. And then there is http://www.bibliophil.org/about.php


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

They're just competitive sites for book lovers; each has a different feel. Pick the one that feels right for you or join them all. I'm interested in what people like to read so I lurk on every book site I can find but I've had more fun on Goodreads.


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## Avalon3 (Dec 3, 2008)

busy91 said:


> My fav site is Goodreads, but they all serve a function. I use Library Thing mainly for a visual library, where as I use Goodreads for connecting with other readers, it is more interactive. Shelfari I am a member of, but don't really use it much. And then there is http://www.bibliophil.org/about.php


There's a large Kindle Group on Shelfari. Shelfari is the only one I use and try to keep up with. I like my Shelfari Widget on my myspace page. Click the Shelfari button below to go to my Shelfari bookcase. I use a Kindle tag for all my books on my Kindle and that way I can keep track of the number of books on Kindle.


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## DawnOfChaos (Nov 12, 2008)

I use LibraryThing.  I'm not as familiar with the other sites you mentioned.  I don't really use it to interact with other readers, but I like how I can format the information about what books I currently own.  I like that I can tag particular books with "Kindle", and that they already show that format when I imput them to my bookshelf.  I also like the ability to quickly look up books on my mobile phone while I'm standing in the middle of Borders.


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## Linda Cannon-Mott (Oct 28, 2008)

Love Shelfari. Like having a home library, quick access to see books read, waiting to be read, reading now plus my Shelfari friends. They offer more but that is all I use.


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## speters (Feb 18, 2009)

I've used Shelfari and like it; just got LibraryThing and haven't spent much time there, but it seems cool too.


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## MAGreen (Jan 5, 2009)

I have never heard of Shelfari or LibrayThing. I was using Goodreads o track mybooks, but the interface was kind of a pain for me. I will check out the others and if they are more what I am looking for. Thanks!


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## busy91 (Feb 27, 2009)

Well I dug up the Shelfari profile, so if anyone wants to friend me or whatever.

http://www.shelfari.com/o1517203920

I do remember it, I thought it was pretty cool, I couldn't go on it too much because I can't access it at work.


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## Wheezie (Oct 28, 2008)

Thanks for the replies. LibraryThing seems more robust, but complicated. I now have a account on all three. GoodReads seems the most social of the three. I guess it is just whatever you are looking for.


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## Avalon3 (Dec 3, 2008)

I just updated my Shelfari tag. Click on it and it takes you to my bookshelf and gives you the current total of books I have on my Kindle. I heard of Shelfari first and have stayed with it. Shelfari is owned by Amazon.



http://shelfari.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/08/shelfari-joins-the-amazoncom-family.html
August 25, 2008
Shelfari joins the Amazon.com family

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/25/amazon-aquires-shelfari-moves-to-corner-social-book-space/
Amazon Acquires Shelfari: Moves To Corner Book-Centric Social Networks

http://profy.com/2008/08/25/amazon-acquires-shelfari-awkward-competition/
Amazon Acquires Shelfari and Places It in an Awkward Competition 
Svetlana Gladkova,
on August 25, 2008,

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2008/08/25/daily8.html?jst=b_ln_hl
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Amazon.com buying ShelfariPuget Sound Business Journal (Seattle)

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/376443_amazonshelfari26.html
Amazon.com buys Shelfari, a startup for book lovers


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

As many have said on this thread, there are good points about all these book sharing sites but entering the data for every book one reads in multiple applications is too time consuming. Does anyone know of an easy way to import/export/synchronize books between these web apps?

The native export and import features use different file formats and the RSS feed only gets some of the tiles and makes numerous mistakes.


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## DawnOfChaos (Nov 12, 2008)

I'm not sure about between them, but I imported my Amazon order history into LibraryThing.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

How did you do that, Dawn?  I couldn't make it work.

Betsy


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## auntmarge (Dec 4, 2008)

I started with Shelfari but found it cumbersome (for me). Now I use LibraryThing, which allows me to easily see data on my collection in various combinations. You can see my page at http://www.librarything.com/profile/auntmarge64 and my library at http://www.librarything.com/catalog/auntmarge64. You might be interested in looking at some of the different formats I've set up for viewing the information: click on the letters A, B, C, D, or E at the top of each page.

LibraryThing is also collecting data which is being input by users and will eventually allow for detailed searching by characters, events, places, important literary relationships in authors' lives, awards, series, quotes, first and last words, dedications, and various other facts. See, for example, these two entries: http://www.librarything.com/work/4646369 and http://www.librarything.com/author/whartonedith. Be sure to cursor down through each page.

It really does depend on which site you feel comfortable using. All three sites have advocates, and some people use more than one. I like using just one, and I contribute to the data being collected. It suits me very well.


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## ak rain (Nov 15, 2008)

Dawn of Chaos I have a library thing account too and I would like to know how to do that too.
Sylvia


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## DawnOfChaos (Nov 12, 2008)

For those with a LibraryThing account that want to import, check out this page here. I thought I did it with the order history, but I just checked and I used the Media Library. Follow the instructions for importing from Media Library. When you get to item 6, and you need to view source, its under the View menu on your web browser, or command U on a Mac. When the window pops up, you'll see something that looks like this about 2/3rds down. These are just some of my asins in between the quotes, yours will be different.

ratingList['B000FC27PE'] = '0';
ratingList['B000TE0R78'] = '0';
ratingList['B0019SDW4S'] = '0';
ratingList['B001JL15CQ'] = '0';

select all of them and copy. Then go the universal importer  in LibraryThing. The third item down is Paste Text (list or source code). Paste your items and hit Grab.

I'm not convinced it gets all the books (it seems to miss a lot of the free stuff), but its a good way to get many of your books into librarything.

If its still not working for you and your MediaLibrary is public, I could try to get your list for you, and I'll pm it back to you. You can pm me with info on how to find your listing.


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## ak rain (Nov 15, 2008)

I can try that. is there a way to drop the "tags" into it. I have not finished reading the my K list and the way I add I can never get to the bottom! I catalog books for work so I know how to find the subjects/tags but wondered if librarything would load them for you.
thank you.
Sylvia


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## Rivery (Nov 10, 2008)

I was also wondering which of these services would work for me.  I went through the "tours" and joined LibraryThing.  I have only loaded one title so far.  My DTB listing should be interesting to try to enter.  It's good to see there is a way to import the Kindle titles.


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## ak rain (Nov 15, 2008)

on your DTB is easy to read the ISBN number on the back - enter that to find title.
Sylvia


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## DawnOfChaos (Nov 12, 2008)

ak rain said:


> I can try that. is there a way to drop the "tags" into it. I have not finished reading the my K list and the way I add I can never get to the bottom! I catalog books for work so I know how to find the subjects/tags but wondered if librarything would load them for you.
> thank you.
> 
> Sylvia


As you're importing them? You can add a tag for large chunks as you import. For example, if you're importing 400 books from your media library at Amazon, you could tag all of them with Amazon. Or after they're in librarything you can select specific ones and tag them all at once. I have not really looked into if you can import a file with tags already on them, as I didn't need to do that.


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## ak rain (Nov 15, 2008)

ookaa I see if I can figure it out.
Thank you,
sylvia


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## Rivery (Nov 10, 2008)

ak rain said:


> on your DTB is easy to read the ISBN number on the back - enter that to find title.
> Sylvia


Thanks. That will make it easier. The one book I did put in, I entered by title.


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## ak rain (Nov 15, 2008)

I am notorious about spelling even titles I am copying. numbers are easier 
Sylvia


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I haven't been able to get the Universal Tool import to work; it is grabbing the ASINs for the digital books, not the ISBNs, and can't find any of the Kindle books...is there a step I'm missing?

Betsy


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I haven't been able to get the Universal Tool import to work; it is grabbing the ASINs for the digital books, not the ISBNs, and can't find any of the Kindle books...is there a step I'm missing?


Into which application are you importing from what?


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Jeff--

(I should have been more specific, I was responding to Dawn's information about importing into LibraryThing, quoted below)

Even though LibraryThing's instructions cited show and talk about ASIN codes, the only thing their import tool will import for me is the hard cover books with ISBNs. I was wondering if I was doing something wrong. I have over 300 books, 255 of them ebooks, and don't really want to load all of them into either LibraryThing or GoodReads by hand. Any suggestions?

Betsy



DawnOfChaos said:


> For those with a LibraryThing account that want to import, check out this page here. I thought I did it with the order history, but I just checked and I used the Media Library. Follow the instructions for importing from Media Library. When you get to item 6, and you need to view source, its under the View menu on your web browser, or command U on a Mac. When the window pops up, you'll see something that looks like this about 2/3rds down. These are just some of my asins in between the quotes, yours will be different.
> 
> ratingList['B000FC27PE'] = '0';
> ratingList['B000TE0R78'] = '0';
> ...


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

Betsy,

No suggestions. I asked the same question somewhere up there. ^

I have something like 400 books in Goodreads but only 90 imported to Shelfari and there were numerous errors.


Jeff


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## DawnOfChaos (Nov 12, 2008)

No Betsy, you're not doing anything wrong.  I just tried to import my ebooks and it puked on all of them.  When I imported before I didn't realize it wasn't importing all of them, because I entered quite a few of the ebooks individually.

Let me do some further checking on this.  I suspect LibraryThing isn't linking the ASIN and the ISBN for Kindle books (somehow).


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

DawnOfChaos said:


> No Betsy, you're not doing anything wrong. I just tried to import my ebooks and it puked on all of them. When I imported before I didn't realize it wasn't importing all of them, because I entered quite a few of the ebooks individually.
> 
> Let me do some further checking on this. I suspect LibraryThing isn't linking the ASIN and the ISBN for Kindle books (somehow).


What's particularly confusing is their own instructions refer to the ASIN:

From: 
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Adding_and_importing_books#How_do_I_import_from_Amazon.3F

The reason to use this unusual method is simple - it not only takes into account everything you have purchased from any retailer on Amazon, it also removes all non-book matter, and allows you to access the ASINs for hundreds of items in one manœuvre. As ASINs only refer to a single type of an item (just as books have multiple ISBNs based on edition, & c.), LibraryThing handles them extremely well. It is quite likely that by importing in this way, you will manage to import all of your purchases in a text file well under the two-megabyte maximum.


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## DawnOfChaos (Nov 12, 2008)

Yes, its very goofy.

Pick any asin from a purchased kindle book.  If I try to import it, it says 'no valid ISBN'.  But if I take that same ASIN to the add book page to add them individually, it brings up the right book and it shows it in Kindle format.  Weird....


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## Lotus (Oct 31, 2008)

I've been using Living Social/Visual Bookshelf. I haven't really used it a whole lot, but it is linked in to Amazon. It makes it easy to look up books, just type part of the title and click on search. I'm not sure if it's particularly Kindle-friendly, but to me, a book is a book. I use it through Facebook.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I've used GoodReads, LibraryThing and Shelfari so far.  All of them seem to do a good job looking up individual books, and I like the fact that Library Thing will let me use my bar code reader (yes I have one) for most of my current paper book collection.  (The really old ones, of course, will have to be entered manually).

I don't discriminate between my Kindle and paper books,   but LibraryThing does.  What I'm looking for is a good way to import the 250 Kindle books that are in my Amazon library, which have ASINs.  The paper books ordered through Amazon have ISBNs and seemed to import fine into LibraryThing, but the ASINs don't when importing in bulk.  (I'm really lazy and don't want to enter them all by hand.)

I've not tried the Living Social, but it also has import from Amazon wish lists, and a Facebook connection.

If you're not sure which one to try, they're all free.  I suggest you try all of them, adding a few books, and see which one you find most usable.

Betsy


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## DawnOfChaos (Nov 12, 2008)

I asked the question in LibraryThing FAQ area, lets see if I get an answer.



Betsy the Quilter said:


> ...will let me use my bar code reader (yes I have one) ...


I'm jealous! I've been looking into getting a scanner, which one do you have and does it work well?


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I actually have two of them; the Cuecat that you can get through LibraryThing (my first one, only I got it through Readerware.com, nice software) and a SerialIO.com reader, also through Readerware.  I like the newer one as I can wander around the house and scan books and videos and then add them to readerware back at the computer. They have more listed on their site, and you can get a cuecat for free if you buy their software, which as I said, is quite nice.

Betsy


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## Angela (Nov 2, 2008)

I have used Living Social/Visual Bookshelf on Facebook.
I have a Shelfari account and have never used it.
I have Calibre installed on my laptop and used it once to download some free books directly to KWINN.
I have thought about using Goodreads.

Mostly, I keep an Excel spreedsheet with all my books and samples. I can sort by date purchased, price, author, title, etc. I keep track of which ones I have read and those on my to read list (and their priority). With both books and samples I also make notes as to whether I liked it and if I would recommend it or not. I always seem to come back to my spreedsheet!


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## ladyvolz (Dec 23, 2008)

I now use Goodreads.  We had a group on AOL on the M/T Book Board.  When AOL shut down the boards for some reason on April 1, one member set up a group on Goodreads for the M/T crowd called M/T Reading Friends.  While the group on Goodreads has only been active for a month, and I have been slowly putting my TBR stacks on a "shelf" there, I have really enjoyed the ability to view comments by others on books they have read, the ability to look up books so easily, and the ability to see what others are reading and view their book lists.  I wish I had checked it out a long time ago.

While you can import your lists there, I have been adding mine individually which has made be really look at some of the books that have been in my TBR stacks for years and weed out some I know I will never read.  It's something I should do once a year, but keep putting off.

I am sure Shelfari is just as interesting and fun, I need to check it out.


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