#11 Of cabbages and things

Sorry, Lewis. Or Mr Dodgson.

Anyway, I have dutifully created a LibraryThing, using some books I've read recently and a few that I think I still own. I've moved recently and weeded my collection; plus my books are in no order at all. Some are even on the shelf upside-down.

I think I am missing something.

I remember once helping my ex catalogue their Magic: the Gathering cards, using a database specially built for the purpose. At least that was done partly to try to gauge their worth, since there were a lot of early and valuable cards in amongst the dross. It was still an act of consummate nerdiness and I have sworn never to repeat it.

I can't really see the point of this. Maybe it's the lack of an internet connection at home, where my books are. Maybe it's the gargantuan amount of time it would take to catalogue all my books, even if I did have an internet connection at home. Maybe it's because I don't feel any particular burning desire to inventory my books. Maybe it's because I'm a reference librarian and not a cataloguer. Maybe it's because I have more than 200 books and would not want to pay for the privilege of typing in all of their bibliographic details. I really don't know, but I really have no desire to pursue LibraryThing.

Okay, except maybe to see if there's one book that I have that no one else has! Well, no one else on LibraryThing. No, wait, must...resist... whew, made my saving throw against obsessive-compulsiveness.

However, I see no reason why libraries should not capitalise on the obsessive-compulsive disorders of other people all over the world. LibraryThing For Libraries looks pretty cool, and I think it would be nifty to incorporate this kind of thing into our catalogues. Plus, reading about the whole thing has gotten me a new jargon term: FRBR. Yes, you too could FRBRize the world! I have even found a paper called What is FRBR? A Conceptual Model for the Bibliographic Universe. Explains it all, really.