I hope this is not a taboo subject - talking about other book sites. That said...

What has been everyone's experience with cataloging sites? Do you use them? I use goodreads but have since heard about three others that do essentially the same thing - catalog and share the love of books. What are the opinions on these sites? Personally, I'm a stat junkie, so the more features, the better.

I hesitate to name the other book sites since I'm not sure what proper forum etiquette is but if later posts say it's ok I will.

I use (but am not promoting!) librarything.com.  I am not sure how I feel about it.  I mean, the site itself is great, it does what it needs to do.  I am just not sure I am an online cataloging kinda girl.  I have a wishlist on amazon, my wishlist here, and my librarything shelf...and it's annoying to have to continually update all three, honestly.

I use goodreads.com as well and love it.  I've looked at library thing but I have heard that you have to pay for over a certain number of books.  I think shelfari is another one that people have said good thing about

I use good reads, I registered at librarything but found out they limit the # of books, I forget how many, but that isn't for me.  Also registered at Shelfari, it looks very spiffy, but not sure about the ease of use...

I've been on goodreads for almost a year.  I'm mostly a library reader, so PBS doesn't work well for keeping track of the books I read.  I love both of them.    That's where I deal with all the books I read, and I like the different forums there, and here I'm going to deal with all the books I own and want to trade.

See....two different sites....two different purposes :)

Goodreads for me -- I was at Librarything, but I don't keep many books, so switched over.

You do have to pay for more than 200 books at Librarything...it's a one time fee of $25.

Goodreads and Librarything here. I don't think it's prohibited to talk about book cataloguing sites or other book sites in general--it's promoting other book TRADING sites that's frowned upon.

Cheryl

I just use PBS.  I have a WL on Amazon that I used to use for any book I came across that I might want to get someday. But I haven't kept it up since I joined PBS.  Usually if I'm trolling Ebay or other book websites, I have a window open with PBS and look the book up here to see if it's on any of my lists or a WL book here.  Like someone else said-I hate having to update and barely keep up with this one.  If I didn't like the message boards, I probably wouldn't even keep my PBS lists updated.  Although I find when I slack off, I end up with duplicates and reordering books I've already read.

PBS covers all my personal use needs.  However, I did start a shelfari account for DS.  We both love that he can actually see his books on a shelf.  Honestly any site that teaches a 6 year old how to enter a book with the ISBN is good in my mind.

Kerry

I tried Library Thing, Shelfari, and Good Reads. I got bored with each of them.

Now, I use Delicious Library, which is not online. It's a cataloging software for mac. I LOVE it. Especially the fact that I can use my built in isight camara as a barcode scanner.

As far as keeping tracks of what books I read, I have a simple entry in Journler (a personal file-cabinet/journal application) for that.

I don't do much with the goodread site except keep track of what books I have on my TBR shelf and what I'm reading for a book challenge or have to review for another site.  There are groups but I just don't get in to them.  I've tried but don't like the format.

Have a question.  Do you input the books at shelfari and goodbooks.com?  I guess you would have to, but I've sure found an easier way and don't have to do all that typing. 

I go to fantasticfiction, find my author, copy the information into a word document, then delete the pictures, etc., and make the page look like I want it to and then I highlight those books I have for that author, if I don't plan on keeping a book after I've read it, I just draw a line through it, and if I'm going to keep it I put an "R" behind the title.  This way I know what the author has written and which of their books I have/need and I don't have to type each title in.   Pat

shelfari is nice.  I have a ton of older books without ISBN's, but so far all but one have been in their system (and I was able to add the missing one).

Pat, any time I receive a book in the mail I type in the ISBN at goodreads and add it to my tbr pile.  I'll do the same here if I received the book from another swap site.  it is easier to me to enter an ISBN then to cut and paste into a word document and I can make any sort of notes I want on goodreads and create additional shelves and such.  for me it works better

I use Goodreads as well. I just started in Jan. and I think it is a good way to keep track of how many books, genre., etc

I use librarything.com but am quickly approaching their "free" cutoff so I have to decide whether I want to pay to play or switch to another site.  I've heard good things about goodreads but I haven't checked it out.  Does anyone know if you can export your list from librarything into something else like goodreads?  I really don't want to have to search for almost 150 books.  Maybe $25 is worth not having that hassle.

I use goodreads, my profile: (http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/963200)

LibraryThing sounds interesting but I'd rather stay on the free side for now. I might try Shelfari. It's fascinating to compare what you're reading/read with others. Goodreads is on the bland side but they do make regular improvements and add new features.

Leslie - typing in the ISBN sounds easy.  I might try it.  Thanks.  (Although I've already got all my books cataloged).  Pat

I just signed up for Librarything, and then found this thread. I needed something I could update from home that my husband could check when he's at the office or travelling. So far he's been able to remember which books he has, but this summer we had 3 duplicate purchases in a row. He's a professor, so his books are his treasure. I liked that I could have it search over-seas libraries, not all of our books are in the Library of Congress or Amazon. And I'd rather do as little typing in as possible, because we have 2 rooms of books. I was dreading it. I'll let you know how it works out for me. I also liked that I could set the privacy settings.

I also use Goodreads. I like the emails that they send, from your friends on the site..and the ease of posting book entries.

Does anyone use any SOFTWARE to inventory their books?  I'm looking for book inventory/collecting software.  So far most programs are either VERY expensive or not very useful.

I collect cookbooks and have over 700 so I was looking for a way to catalog them.  On E-Bay I found one that cost $25.00 but then I found one that is absolutely free!!!  I downloaded it from the website checking for viruses, trojans, etc., and it was clean.  It has catagories that you just fill in with info on the book (title, author, publisher, date, cost, etc.) and then you can show it in different formats. 

The website is spacejock.com.  The catalog program is about the 14th program down and is called BookDB.  It takes about 2 minutes to install it. 

I started entering some cookbooks last night around 2:00am and was so excited because it is exactly what I was looking for!!!!!!  Check it out, I hope some of you find it helpful!