Since I was the one who mentioned - in a post to the LwC Yahoo group - that I prefer LibraryThing over Shelfari, I suppose I should be the first to answer Mary's questions. However, please bear in mind that I am much more familiar with LibraryThing than Shelfari, so please correct me if any of my comments are incorrect or incomplete. What I provide below is simply a list of observations based on my personal experience with both websites.
When I came across LibraryThing I was looking for a webservice for cataloging books, and that is precisely what LibraryThing was at the beginning - the social network aspect started to evolve later as more and more people began to use the service. It may be for this reason that it's a much better and more complete application if what you want is to access detailed information about foreign, out-of-print, hard-to-find books or special editions. While Shelfari apparently looks to Amazon as their only source of data, LibraryThing allows you to search the databases of nearly 700 libraries and online book stores in 46 different countries (The Library of Congress, the British Library... but also the Catàleg Col·lectiu de les Universitats de Catalunya!). And if your book does not come up in the search, you can always add the book and relevant information manually. When I imported the list of books I have on LibraryThing into Shelfari, many of them could not be added, in some cases I managed to add an alternative edition of the book to my bookshelf (e.g. an English translation), but not always - so my list of books on Shelfari does not include hardly any of the old out-of-print books I have bought second-hand or the many books I have in languages other than English. Furthermore, when Amazon does not provide a cover for the book, there appears to be no way to scan and upload a picture of the cover into Shelfari (at least I have not managed to figure out how to do it).
Which brings me to my second point. Although Shelfari is definitely less text-dense, in my opinion, this does not make it easier to navigate. On the contrary, I find that many of the options in Shelfari are hidden or difficult to find - but then again this may be due to the fact that I'm more familiar with LibraryThing. It took me quite a while, for example, to realize that it's possible to change to a tabular view of your library in Shelfari - similar to LibraryThing's default view - by clicking on 'switch to list view'. This tabular view is a much easier way to add tags, ratings, etc. than via the mouse-over pop-up! In LibraryThing, however, you can customize the information you want to see in tabular view - and define up to 5 different 'styles' or combinations of information, choosing from a large number of options, not all of which are available on Shelfari (e.g. the subject headings provided by the Library of Congress).
Another thing I like better about LibraryThing is that the mechanism for finding members with your books is more complete. In Shelfari, by going to members/just for you, you can see pictures of the 10 people on Shelfari with the most similar bookshelves. But as I mentioned previously, these similarities may not reflect your current reading tastes or interests, and there is no way I can see of getting more library-based friend suggestions, apart from the initial 10. LibraryThing allows you to carry out three different kinds of searches, 'raw', 'weighted' by book obscurity and library size, or 'recent' (i.e. books added in the last two weeks). You can also access a list of books that you share with only one other member, or you can find members that are using the same tags you are. Moreover, tags people consider to mean the same thing are grouped together, so if you tag a book 'science fiction' and someone else tags it 'ciencia ficción', these will be considered equivalent terms when running a search on people who are using the same tags you are. All of this, I find, makes it easier to find people with similar reading tastes and interests.
Other things? Well, LibraryThing has been translated into 6 different languages and is in the process of being translated into 42 others - by groups of users! As a result, there are many more members (according to Quantcast.com LibraryThing has 218,112 unique monthly users while Shelfari has only 9,898) from a wider variety of countries, thus making it possible to discuss books in languages other than English (which is great for language learners!) You can run searches within your library and also select multiple books and edit them simultaneously, for example, to select the language the book is written in or to add the same tag to a number of books at the same time. You can also swap books with other users, search for the nearest library where you can find a copy of the book or access an electronic version of the book through Google's Book Search API.
I'm sure Shelfari has some advantages over LibraryThing, especially with regard to its function as a social network, and I'm really looking forward to exploring these aspects with the LwC group. One thing I have already noticed, is that Shelfari allows users to set up different shelves for Reading, To Read, Own, Favorites, Wish List etc. This is not possible in LibraryThing (unless you add these options as tags). And while LibraryThing does show a list of most commonly shared books for each group, it does not provide each group with a separate bookshelf or indicate which groups have or are discussing a given book. Besides, while Shelfari is free for everyone, regardless of the size of their library, non-paying members of LibraryThing are limited to 200 books (for larger libraries it charges a $10 annual fee, with a lifetime membership going for $25 ). Well, that's enough to get the conversation running, I imagine. I realize that many of the advantages I've outlined are probably more important for a bibliophile like myself than for a language student, so I'm expecting to have some or my arguments refuted. Looking forward to your comments, Birgit
posted 1 year ago. ( reply )
