# 8 Catalogue your own books with Library Thing

I love cataloguing. I have catalogued my home collection. I have catalogued my dad's collection of cookbooks (he is a caterer and thus has bookshelves upon bookshelves). I also catalogued the collection of my old workplace, a childcare centre. I loved cataloguing these collections. I was fortunate enough to catalogue some of the library's map collection.

So that's possibly why Library Thing felt like a bit of a disappointment to me. There was no Voyager or homemade Access database. There was no decisions about what Dewey number to use. It was simply add a record, and then tag. I loved the tagging aspect, and tried to ensure I had standard tags for all my books.

Still, not everyone in the world loves cataloguing, so Library Thing is a very useful tool. My flatmate decided to pay for a full account, so she could catalogue more than 200 books. I also really like how libraries can incorporate the tags from Library Thing into their own catalogue. It's much more effective than simply waiting for their own users to tag items- there's a far greater number of people using Library Thing, and thus a greater number of tags, and the ability to show which tags are the strongest. My own public library uses Library Thing tags in the catalogue. I've used the tags to find fiction books on particular topics.

I can see great potential in tags for helping users find items. As much as I love LCSH and Dewey, they don't have a natural language, and thus can be confusing for users. I think an ideal catalogue would use both.