LibraryThing update

[rhu]

Another 3 hours, and I'm up to 1168 books on LibraryThing. Still missing the kids' rooms, the attic (a/k/a the "deep stacks"), seven shelves of SF&F on the landing, lots of sheet music, and somewhere between 50 and 100 Judaica books that either don't have ISBNs or whose ISBNs couldn't be found. (What's really frustrating is when volume 1 is in the database but volumes 2-22 are not. Yes, Feldheim Mishna Berurah, I'm talking to you!)

Oh, and I created an NPL group over there.

(ETA: My 1,000th entry was Between Silk and Cyanide, which I recently reread. A wonderful book about codemaking in WWII by the son of the founder of "84".)

Comments

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

Are these mainly old books you're entering? Any book I have with a UPC I wave in front of my computer's camera and Delicious Monster adds it to the database.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

If they have Bookland EAN barcodes, I swipe the CueCat over it. Chip-chop, it's in. Usually.

UPCs are useless because they usually just identify stuff like "A Tor mass-market paperback costing $5.99" Most of the time, though, the ISBN is right there and I can keyboard it which is not terribly slow. I considered going the "take a picture and use one of those websites that OCRs the ISBN" route, but what if the ISBN isn't in the database, how would I figure out which book I need to search for? I'm borrowing a laptop, it doesn't have a webcam, and it's not a Mac anyway :-)

My biggest problem isn't the older books. Books like "Favorite Works of Poe" may not have an ISBN, but type in one or two keywords from each title and the name of the editor and Amazon returns the correct results pretty quickly.

My biggest problems are the Hebrew books and the Judaica that for some reason have ISBNs but aren't in the various databases. On the one hand, I don't want to be a data entry clerk for Feldheim and Artscroll (who are the biggest offenders in the latter category). On the other hand, I'm quite proud of my Judaica collection and it certainly helps to define who I am (or "who we are" since I'm cataloging the whole family's collection), which is part of the soul-baring exercise here. Our geek side is adequately represented, Heather's clothing and knitting side is adequately represented, my type wonk side is adequately represented, but half of our Jewish biblidentity is obscured.

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

I *meant* ISBNs and EANs. Geepers you'd think I'd know better...

[ennienyc.livejournal.com]

I imported my Library Thing list from BookCrossing and therefore don't have most of my reference books or others in my "permanent collection." Entering those will be a project for... I don't know when.

[ertchin.livejournal.com]

22 books in common with my (small but still incomplete) list. Neat.