Matt recently befriended me on GoodReads. I’d never used it and quickly set up an account. I just deleted that account. I’ve been using LibraryThing for a while now, and GoodReads just didn’t offer a compelling enough alternative.

LibraryThing and GoodReads are similar in a lot of ways. At their essence they both track what’s on your bookshelf. Both tools offer some level of community around the stuff you read, and both offer ways to organize the books online. That’s kind of the end of the similarities, though.

Here’s what LibraryThing does that I don’t want to give up:

• Tagging. I tag everything I can and I’m used to it. Why go back to a flat hierarchy?
• Integration with Amazon. I buy a lot of books on Amazon, and LibraryThing’s bookmarklet is indispensable as a replacement tool for the Amazon wishlist (hint: use a ‘wishlist’ tag to organize your wishlist and be done with the constraints of the Amazon wishlist)
• Open API. This means that other people can build cool tools on top of LibraryThing.

Those are the main ones. LibraryThing also lets you use a CueCat to scan the barcodes of your books right into their database. They have plugins and widgets to help you display and work with your data. The import tool is excellent (GoodReads was okay, but it took some manipulation in Excel before I got everything to import). And LibraryThing has a mobile version that works on your cell phone and totally rocks.

There’s really no reason for me to switch, sorry, Matt. But you might consider it. 🙂

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