From the Cataloguer’s Desk

By Eileen Smith, Library Committee Member

Carol Van Why previously has written about the pilot project to create on online inventory and catalog of the Library collection, begun in late June 2021. Six months later, I am pleased to report that approximately 25% of our collection is catalogued. Once most of the collection has been inventoried, we will examine an option for making the database searchable as a publicly accessible online catalog for Coffman residents.

​The bibliographic records are being created in LibraryThing. This is a free web application intended for individual use and collections, and by small “corporate” libraries such as those found in churches, small organizations, individual public and private K-12 schools, and Coffman.

The advantage of using LibraryThing to create an online database (besides the advantage of it being free!) is that one can download records from the Library of Congress as well as many public and academic libraries from around the world. Not only does this save a great deal of time in entering data, but these records include the authorized subject headings that provide additional access beyond simply author/title. With LibraryThing, we may continue using our local classification system (Fiction, Biography, 1666 Authors) and also may supply additional search terms such as “Coffman Biography” and “Minnesota Fiction” to our records.

LibraryThing can be used by individuals not only to create a free inventory of their personal collections, but also to keep track of their reading. Some of my friends do this. When they finish a book borrowed from the public library, they go into their account on LibraryThing.com, download the appropriate record into it, and use the rating system included to track whether or not they liked the book. They also can look back to check which titles by prolific authors they’ve already read (Agatha Christie, Louise Penny, John Grisham, James Patterson, for example). There’s even an app for LibraryThing, so you can take your LibraryThing database with you to the library or to the bookstore on your smartphone.

I started using LibraryThing not long after its 2005 debut because I would find myself attending a conference across the country, going into a used bookstore, and not being able to remember whether I had already found a copy of certain out-of-print texts for my personal research collection. Sound familiar?

As of this writing, there are 2,698,748 members on LibraryThing. Besides the database option, there are reading groups and lists and reviews and much more. You can check it out for yourself at LibraryThing.com.