Catalog your books online.

If you are a reader like I am, you probably also own an abundance of books. Keeping track of those books can sometimes be a bit of a hassle. After trying numerous, often strenous different methods to catalog my nearly 200 books using tangible means, I finally gave up.

Before long the desire to catalog my books came back and I figured I'd try a different method: electronic. After a quick search online I narrowed my options down to two sites, "Collectorz*" and "LibraryThing" and looked over each site debating which one suited me the best.

Collectorz requires that you download a program and only allows you to catalog 100 books before you must begin paying for their services. LibraryThing on the other hand is all done online. Setting up an account is very easy and it allows you to input up to 200 books for free before it will charge you to start using its services.

Collectorz offers a wide range of services, especially after you pay the $39.95 for their pro edition, meanwhile LibraryThing offers numerous services and if you want to enter over 200 books, it will only cost $10 for a year of its service or one payment of $25 for a lifetime of their services.

I decided that I would go with LibraryThing for my menial needs. LibraryThing is still in its beta stage which means that improvements will be made to it in the future. If you have a large number of books and distribute them among friends, family and co-workers often, I would suggest going with Collectorz because this program will help you keep track of this distribution.

LibraryThing provides you with statistics about the books you have cataloged, and the site will also tell you who else on the site owns the same book(s) that you own. You can add books to your catalog using the books title, author or ISBN number. The site will search several sources to find your book, including a picture. The sources include amazon.com, the library of congress and several other libraries. One you've entered your books, you can see what people who have the same books as you also have. The site also offers books recommendations.

Collectorz also offers a scanner that you can purchase for $99.95 that will allow you to scan the barcodes on your books for a quick way to add books to your catalog. They also offer a way in which you can back up your collections onto CD's for safe keeping, this will cost additional money.

The only problem I find with LibraryThing is that it does lack a feature to keep track of books that have been loaned out. But I have found a way to go around this, essentially by adding a note after the Date catagory under the "list view" of the "your library" tab.

For further information, check out www.librarything.com or www.collectorz.com .

*I should also point out that collectorz also offers services to catalog several other forms of media including music, movies, comic, game, MP3 and photos so yeah if you are in possession of large quantities of books, and other forms of media, I suggest looking into collectorz.