The Wall Street Journal-20080202-WEEKEND JOURNAL- Picks -- Online- Books- A Web Library Catalog Links With a Big Chain
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WEEKEND JOURNAL; Picks -- Online: Books; A Web Library Catalog Links With a Big Chain
Full Text (276 words)WHEN TIM SPALDING launched LibraryThing.com to make a Web catalog of the books he'd acquired as a classics student at the University of Michigan, he thought of it as a personal project that might interest a few graduate-school dropouts like him. The site, which allows users to list their book collections, now has a 23 million-book catalog. Mr. Spalding, 36 years old, argues that most educated adults have "have books that are not on Amazon." This week, independent bookstore Powell's Books became the sixth and biggest bookstore to list its books on the site.
Besides uploading covers of out-of-print or rare books (the site has 700,000 user-uploaded covers), reviewing books and classifying titles with tags like "chick lit" or "paranormal romance," site users can compare their libraries and interact in interest groups and message boards.
Paola Sergi, an archivist at the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, joined LibraryThing in May 2006 to catalog her collection of Virago Modern Classics. She has put 3,260 books on LibraryThing and regularly meets members with her interest in women writers. "All my friends pop in at least once a day," she says.
The site has about 350,000 members (though Mr. Spalding says the active number is far less), but it extends beyond individuals. The site's catalog also includes the collections of 252 international libraries and 39 U.S. libraries. In May 2006, Canadian bookseller AbeBooks bought 40% of the company. Mr. Spalding won't specify revenue but says the seven-employee site breaks even on user charges ($10 a year or $25 lifetime for those who list more than 200 books) and from selling user-created reviews and tags to booksellers and libraries.
