LibraryThing

I tried LibraryThing today. What a smart idea! Using the existing library catalogs to build our personal library catalog, and also links people with similar reading taste! The site also recommends books to read, gather similar topics, what a useful services for me as I stepping into American children's literature. I would love to find out what the other people read, what they have in their bookshelves so that I can find and read to my kids.

As a matter of fact, since I moved to American 6 years ago, I left all my Chinese book collections at home. There are so few Chinese books to read; I occasionally read American newspapers and magazines, but haven't really read any American literature, not till I start to read to my son. I first got to know American literature at the Nashville public library children's room. I was amazed to see so many board books and picture books that tailored to littler readers, wish we had that in China. Since he was two we borrowed 10 - 20 books every week to read before bedtime. From randomly picking books just by looking at covers, to picking books by his favorite characters, by topics, then by authors, by Caldecott Medal books, we explored the American children literature together and had so much fun. Now he is such a good reader, he reads in a much higher level than his age, he reads chapter books and enjoys reading more than anything else. One and half year ago, I finally changed my idea of borrowing books from the library to collecting books and build a personal library in my home, and we started to collect some of his favourite books. Recently I also found out several blogs reviewing children's literature, and several children's book websites. I guess my casual interest in American children's literature will grow to a more serious one. With this libraryThing, I will be able to get more on the Children's literature. Hopefully I will find out some type of literature that I like to read about later.

One more thing to be mentioned, LibraryThing just added language support, but they don't have Chinese yet. I wrote to them suggesting to add it and offered my help. Wish one day I can catalog all my Chinese books and share with my friends both in China and in America.

PS: I saw a library is using this service to promote their newly arrived books. We need to adapt it.