Technology. Sigh.

You guys all know I'm a total bookworm. Well, that extends to the internet. I blog about books all the time, probably more often than I blog about something other than books. I follow lots of authors' blogs. I have Barnes & Noble's website bookmarked, I have Amazon bookmarked, I have my library website bookmarked...

I also have Shelfari bookmarked. Shelfari is a wonderful website that lets you create a log of what books you own, what books you've read and enjoyed, your favorite books, and a book wishlist; it lets you discuss your favorite books, share book reviews, and just in general form a community of bookworms. I love Shelfari. I spend probably way too much time on the website. It's fantastic. If you enjoy reading at all, I suggest setting up an account. It's great.

Today, I discovered LibraryThing. It's a similar sort of setup: you can catalog your books, share reviews, discuss books, and it has the added bonus of having an Early Reviewers program, which means that you can get free books as long as you write reviews about them. It seemed like a very cool thing. I signed up, started cataloging my books, and signed up for the Early Reviewers program.

I was adding books alphabetically, not by title or preference (so I hadn't gotten anywhere close to Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings; I hadn't even made it to the Chronicles of Narnia) and all of a sudden a little message pops up that says "Free accounts have a maximum of 200 books. To add more, you must upgrade to a paid account."

I don't want to pay to tell the internet what books I have and what books I like. I already have a Shelfari account that lets me list all of my books, free of charge. I deleted enough books to make room for some of my favorites, left a few spaces to spare in case I get any through the ER program that I have to add and review, and quickly switched back to Shelfari. But you know, I could have saved a lot of time if LT had told me that they capped at 200 books before I started adding stuff. It would have helped.

I have heard people rant and rave about how wonderful LibraryThing is, and I do not doubt that had I not spent a lot of time adding books only to be required go back and remove them, I would enjoy it too. But really, why do I need to pay money to keep a list of books? I've been keeping lists of books for years at no cost. It just seems a little bit pointless to pay LT to do it for me, when I'd still have to go through and manually add each and every book.

So, meaning no disrespect to LibraryThing (if you like it/have a paid account/are willing to pay for an account/don't mind the 200-book limit, I really am very happy for you), here's to Shelfari.

G'night, everybody. Love,
Bex