#12 – Netlibrary

Netlibrary, as a resource, is woefully understocked. I would only recommend attempting to use it if it’s already known that the book the customer is looking for is part of their database. The basic search function is too broad in its scope, and it seems to place no weight on authors or titles over miscellaneous information. The advanced search works much like Horizon’s advanced search, and is the only search I would tell a NetLibrary user to employ.

I’m of the opinion that digital delivery of books is the obvious direction we’re headed in, but reading on computer screens (at least with the standard black-text-on-white-background setup) is far too harsh on the eyes, and eReaders won’t become popular until they start coming preloaded on devices we already have.

Somebody painted over paint
Painted wood

#11 – Library Thing

I’m almost a fan of this application. It comes so close to being what I want.

Library Thing catalogs the books that I’ve read, convenient for the forgetful, but what I’m looking for is something a little more forward-looking. I want something that will facilitate future reading, I want an application that not only records what I’ve read, but allows me to keep a list of what I want to read. Also, if I’m being critical, the adding books function needs the ability to add multiple books at once, or at least save your search so that you don’t have to reenter it after every addition. Not long ago I read a fairly decent amount of Kurt Vonnegut’s repertoire, and after the 6th search I was getting tired of typing in “Vonnegut” after every search.

Criticisms aside, I really feel that this is a solid site; one that I’ll be using in the future, even after the web challenge is over. If it had a wish list-style function, it’d be perfect.

Book after book
I get hooked
everytime the writer
talks to me like a friend