Ideally a pen and a nice Five-Subject giant notebook would be the perfect book catalogue, but without pictures of covers, reviews, blog widgets and other readers’ comments. I still keep one. Recently, I’ve found that the notebook has fewer entries than the online catalogue. A scary indicator of how net-dependent our lives have become.
Apart from the five websites I’ve reviewed in detail, there are plenty of other options for those who want to keep track of their bookshelves online. These do not offer as many features and conveniences as the five, but I’m just mentioning them in case you’re adventurous or bored enough to try.
There are websites such as Whatsonmybookshelf.com, Bookswellread.com, Revish.com which I would rank lower or at par with aNobii for a variety of reasons: no discussions possible for books, cannot recommend, no blog widgets and the like.
An interesting website is the Internet Books Database – ibookdb.net, which is very similar to the Internet Movie Database. Information about books and authors (instead of movies and actors) and socialiazing facilities. While it has plenty of information about books and authors, books can be organized as Owned, Wanted, Favorites, Read and Unread. There is a blog widget as well but for sheer looks and ease of usage, I wouldn’t rank this very high as a book catalogue.There’s also the Internet Adult Book Database which deals with erotica alone, and the Internet Book Database of Fiction, which is actually very informative. Other websites include the Internet Book List, the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. I’ve left out a handful of other sites, but that’s because I felt they were irrelevant.
Whichever the website, there is definitely room for improvement. Shelfari must provide a way to add our own covers. Ditto GoodReads. GoodReads must also provide an easier way to change labels – moving from Reading to Read is not as easy as it ought to be. While the above features are present in LibraryThing, I’d rather spend the money on buying a book rather than on cataloguing it.
Okay, winding up. Now I really can’t name ONE website as the best for book cataloguing. I recommend GoodReads, LibraryThing and Shelfari. If you want a free cataloguing site, pick Shelfari OR GoodReads, or as I’ve done, keep both! Feel free to send friend requests. I love seeing other people’s reading lists! Enjoy book cataloguing :)
Disclaimer: I am not trying to promote any of these websites, nor am I associated with them/their creators and employees. I’m just a user who signed up for a free account on all these websites, used each one for at least a week, spending the better part of my time looking around, before I decided to write this review. All views and opinions are mine alone. Now, these reviews are not comprehensive and there may be stuff I’ve left out. Feel free to correct or comment.
Apart from the five websites I’ve reviewed in detail, there are plenty of other options for those who want to keep track of their bookshelves online. These do not offer as many features and conveniences as the five, but I’m just mentioning them in case you’re adventurous or bored enough to try.
There are websites such as Whatsonmybookshelf.com, Bookswellread.com, Revish.com which I would rank lower or at par with aNobii for a variety of reasons: no discussions possible for books, cannot recommend, no blog widgets and the like.
An interesting website is the Internet Books Database – ibookdb.net, which is very similar to the Internet Movie Database. Information about books and authors (instead of movies and actors) and socialiazing facilities. While it has plenty of information about books and authors, books can be organized as Owned, Wanted, Favorites, Read and Unread. There is a blog widget as well but for sheer looks and ease of usage, I wouldn’t rank this very high as a book catalogue.There’s also the Internet Adult Book Database which deals with erotica alone, and the Internet Book Database of Fiction, which is actually very informative. Other websites include the Internet Book List, the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. I’ve left out a handful of other sites, but that’s because I felt they were irrelevant.
Whichever the website, there is definitely room for improvement. Shelfari must provide a way to add our own covers. Ditto GoodReads. GoodReads must also provide an easier way to change labels – moving from Reading to Read is not as easy as it ought to be. While the above features are present in LibraryThing, I’d rather spend the money on buying a book rather than on cataloguing it.
Okay, winding up. Now I really can’t name ONE website as the best for book cataloguing. I recommend GoodReads, LibraryThing and Shelfari. If you want a free cataloguing site, pick Shelfari OR GoodReads, or as I’ve done, keep both! Feel free to send friend requests. I love seeing other people’s reading lists! Enjoy book cataloguing :)
Disclaimer: I am not trying to promote any of these websites, nor am I associated with them/their creators and employees. I’m just a user who signed up for a free account on all these websites, used each one for at least a week, spending the better part of my time looking around, before I decided to write this review. All views and opinions are mine alone. Now, these reviews are not comprehensive and there may be stuff I’ve left out. Feel free to correct or comment.
Wow, you've really done a lot of research! Ii had no idea there were so many different sites. I think I will stick with Shelfari.
ReplyDeleteI keep notebooks too since I like to keep most of my reviews private.
I also carry around a small notebook that I've divided into sections A-Z.
By writing down any new books I buy (categorized by the author's name) I can check and see if I already own the book or not....tend to buy one too many books...But it's still nice to have Shelfari for online reference and quick searches.
Thank you for sharing!
What a great roundup! Thank you! I love Good Reads and will stay there for now. This has been fantastic. :)
ReplyDeleteOkay - So I thought Shelfari was going to be your overall number one pick. I'm set up with that but I'll have to dig into Good Reads a little more. Getting ready to take a few weeks off so maybe I can catch up on some things. Great job with this research & desription.Thanks for taking on this project.
ReplyDeleteHi, ReNu! I agree, you've done a wonderful job. What research, time and effort spent! I think Shelfari would be the best pick of the litter because of the bookcases. I think I'll nix the whole online cataloging idea for now. I've enough on my plate--two blogs, a novel and work is plenty enough.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see what your next post will be....Penny
Thank you, people. It's very encouraging to have your support and feedback. I'm glad if this blog gives at least one useful piece of information to people.
ReplyDeleteAt some point, I'll be reviewing the different Writing Magazines (I've subscribed to most mags at some point. I'm waiting for my subscription to the Writer Magazine to start before I can review it).