Newbie with a dumb question: LibraryThing vs Goodreads?

Hi Guys!

I'm new to LibraryThing and just poking around, trying to figure it out.

I wonder if somebody might educate me on the differences between LibraryThing and Goodreads? Do you maintain accounts in both places or do folks typically choose one or the other?

And if it's one or the other for you, what made you choose LibraryThing over the alt?

Sorry, hope my questions aren't controversial! I'm trying to figure out if it's worth the effort to migrate over. Or if I should come here to browse discussions when I'm bored? Or whatever?

Thanks :)

There was a flood of GRs refugees back in 2013.

Here's a thread you might read to get a feel for the mood of the times: https://www.librarything.com/topic/152191

and then a few threads in this group from back then: https://www.librarything.com/topic/152048

I've sampled GoodReads, but I found it hard to navigate. I love this site. There is always some fun or task or intense discussion to participate in.

Welcome.

>1 Mitty_Walters: LibraryThing is predominantly driven by cataloguing and good data - the social side develops from that really. You'll find that many members are driven by accurate catalogue data primarily but also have fun chatting with other like-minded souls. Goodreads seems to me to be primarily about the social side of tracking with the data integrity side taking a backseat. That's just my take on it.

Personally, LT is my bookish home. I've got a disposable Goodreads account that I'm tracking solely read books with this year to experiment with their reading summary & challenge tracking ... but really I'm doing this to feed back into some suggestions to develop here.

Also, LT is wonderfully personal - you will find the founder and the staff remarkable present on forums and very interactive ... not just on site issues but on topics that interest them. I'm not sure what the community aspect of Goodreads is like so I can't compare but we have lovely things like SantaThing at Christmas and a membership who support and donate to others.

Also, LT is about the members so author promotion is much more tightly policed and members work hard to keep SPAM off the message boards in Talk.

I hope you enjoy LT - being here doesn't preclude using Goodreads but we'd like to win you over!

ETA: YMMV, this is just my opinion!

>1 Mitty_Walters: Personally I think of it this way (I use both, though it's probably about 85% LT and 15% GR). To me LT is like a library, while GR is like a bookstore.

There is nothing inherently bad about either a library or a bookstore, they're just different. One based more on reading, the other on selling. Neither is perfect, neither is evil. They're just different.

>4 DanieXJ: That's a good analogy!

I have accounts both places, and basically never use the one at Goodreads. There are a number of reasons for that, the primary one being that I am more interested in the bibliographic side of things than the social side. And I also find LT more visually appealing. I dislike the cluttered, graphics-heavy look of Goodreads; it's very off-putting.

Ah, good stuff. Thanks you guys. And thanks for those threads, 2wonderY. I've been browsing around, seems like folks are far more laid back over here.

>4 DanieXJ: DanieXJ: Right on. Both (library/store) are useful in their own way.

I've always been vaguely *aware* of LT, but didn't pay much attention until I noticed somebody had reviewed my book over here.

Don't worry, I'm well aware of the rules. I actually kind of like that promoting is *not* allowed, hence the reason I'm considering a migration from GR. I enjoy writing, but loath all the self-promotion garbage that goes with it. I'm no good at that, anyway.

One more quick question... how do I "Follow" a discussion? On many forums, you can just hit Subscribe. I might never have realized anybody had responded to this thread, had I not logged in and browsed my way back!

Is there an easier way to keep up with a discussion you want to follow?

You can click on "Star this Topic" up at the top of the page.

I'm also an author, and appreciate having a place on line where I can forget that fact and just talk about other people's books--and catalogue my collection.

>7 Mitty_Walters: As a brief note, I just left you a comment on your profile. I see you already have your LT Author badge (congratulations!). Import some books. Hang out. You sound like a keeper to me.

>Marissa_Doyle: Thanks for the "Star this Topic" trick! I starred this thread, took me a moment to figure out where it showed up... but there it was. Very handy!

>Lyndatrue: I sound like a keeper? Aw shucks, now I'm blushing. ;-)

Thanks for the author forum links, I'll go check them out.

Added trick:

If you use the greater than symbol and the message number, it will point back to the one you refer.
>10 Mitty_Walters: Like so.

>10 Mitty_Walters: If you found the stars, you'll likely have seen that one of the links there is "started by you," using that you can always get a quick glance if new posts are on anything you started.

>11 gilroy: gilroy: Ah, cool beans. Ty!

>12 .Monkey.: .Monkey.: Um... yes. Yes, I did. And no one can prove otherwise. lol

I have no idea how I missed that, but thanks.

It sounds like you already have an answer, but I'll mostly repeat what other people have already said. LibraryThing is basically about ownership; it focuses on the bibliographic details of the books in your collection. GR is focused on what you read, and is optimized for easy tracking and displaying of that information.

I use both, because both feature sets are useful to me and because some of my real-life friends are on GoodReads and not LT.

But I spend far more time on LibraryThing, because I prefer the community here. I never use any of the social features on GR, other than following individual people.

>13 Mitty_Walters: As for messages you want to easily return to, if you click on the 'More' link at the bottom of any message, you 'Favourite' it. If you navigate Talk through the main page:

http://www.librarything.com/talk

There's a link to 'Favourite Messages' towards the bottom of the left-hand subnav which you can click on to bring up all threads with favourites in. Clicking on the thread from this view will take you directly to the message you tagged. I find this useful for messages with HTML instructions or other stuff I periodically want to refer back to but often forget the location of!

>13 Mitty_Walters: Hahaha, you're welcome.

Thanks for the 'Favourite' tip, Klarusu!

And thanks for adding your thoughts, _Zoe_. I'm already having more fun over here, primarily because of the stronger sense of community. Seems much more laid back/casual and friendly. In browsing around LT, I find myself pretty engaged in the discussions I've found.... though I'm just lurking at the moment (other than this thread). At GR, I pretty much ignored the forums.

>17 Mitty_Walters: Just wanted to add that I love your member name.

We're a smaller more intimate group here. Even the folks who don't get along all "know" each other, it's like a small town, as opposed to a sprawling metropolis where everything is too busy and unfocused etc. We like it here. ;)

>17 Mitty_Walters: I started by 'just lurking' and 9 & half years, 4,156 messages and 278,932 words ago, and now here I am. Welcome to the dark side ;-)

You can find that kind of stuff out via Home/Stats & Memes/Groups and Talk ... but there's all sorts of other fun stuff there too.

we have better drugs.

and we have MrAndrew

>19 .Monkey.: .Monkey.: I lurked for a bit on GR, but lost interest primarily for the reason you point out... "conversation" seemed like splintered, loud, cacophony than discourse.

Klarusu... good Lord, woman!!! Well, I see you've been here for 9 years. Still, that's more than 30k words per year! That's a novelette each year. Or 5 full novels! I envy your enthusiasm! :)

>21 MrAndrew: MrAndrew: to be read with Jamaican accent Ya, mon! Don' be stingy, fre'n. Pass de dutchie on lef' hand side!

>18 Taphophile13: Taphophile13: Caught that, eh? haha! I read that short when I was 11 or 12 and had an *instant* connection with Walter. I had it kind of rough as a kid and escaped the harsher realities of my life through reading. I lived vicariously as Tom Sawyer, Arthur Dent, etc. When I wasn't reading, I always had some wild adventure going on in my head. And that's what caused me to become a writer... I was having so much fun with the stories in my head that I finally started writing them down. So what better pseudonym to use than that of the guy I identify with most?

*checks*
"Messages
Total messages: 8,111
Word count: 515,287
Words/message: 63.53"
And I have technically been here 9 yrs, but really only became active on the site 4 yrs ago. :P

>23 Mitty_Walters: & >24 .Monkey.: Yep, I reckon I'm on the 'light' side ;-)

I think I'll refrain from commenting on my word count.

>26 _Zoe_: I wonder how many of each of ours were us arguing with each other at length on the RSI threads ;-)

>27 klarusu: Hehe, I'd imagine it's quite a few :)

Having been here 10 years+, these others put my numbers to shame. :)

I couldn't take it. I had to go look. I've been here less than three years:

Total messages: 1,955
Word count: 163,295
Words/message: 83.53

Looks like I'm right on track. :-}

>30 Lyndatrue: Yup. I'm put to shame. :)

Total messages: 2,845
Word count: 132,462
Words/message: 46.56

You guys are cracking me up. This reminds of the scene in Letha Weapon when Gibson and ??? (her name slips me) compare battle scar! lolol

Ok, had to track it down. Hope it's ok to post a link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNOsA4nH8yE

>32 Mitty_Walters: Oh, that's totally us ;-). Scoff not though, for I fear this may just be a premonition of your future! ;-)

Oh good grief! Hahaha. Well, I suppose I could think of a worse fate. Might be fun to get fired up enough about something that I'd end up churning out some stats like that :)

I've been on LT since Dec 2005 but didn't start posting seriously until Dec 2009.

Total messages: 10,773
Word count: 630,811
Words/message: 58.55

Although I will say the stats are probably not super-accurate. My longest message is listed as 3,181 words but when I clicked through to it it was maybe 30 words and a photo. So ...

>32 Mitty_Walters: ... Renee Russo?

Renee Russo of course! Duh, I'm so bad with names.

>37 Collectorator: How did you kill it? Oh... you're admin? Looks like I can still post.

>38 Mitty_Walters: I think Collectorator posted the Common Knowledge and Combining stats, which are indeed a thing to be proud of! LT members put in a really large amount of time working on the data themselves to make sure it's as good as it can be. You'll probably come across this as you find your way around. Common Knowledge is the area of each work where members contribute all sorts of background data for each work - characters, places, important events etc. etc. It's a great resource. When you enter an individual book, it should be combined automatically into the main 'work' (kind of like a central catch-all edition) but that doesn't always happen and things 'under the hood' aren't always correct. Members spend a lot of time fixing and improving that side of things - which, in turn, helps ensure that people are 'linked' by their ownership of titles. Disclaimer - this is a really simple breakdown of that process! You'll find members also police SPAM on the site and very often get extremely vocal and involved in BETA testing of features.

>39 klarusu: Oh, gotcha. I'm seeing some parallels/similarities between LT and wikipedia, in that LT is a lot about about information. Much individual effort goes into the building/curating and those with similar interest collaborate/screen/etc.

Interesting.

Ok, thanks everybody! This little thread gave me much to consider, plus gave me warm-and-fuzzies for the community over here. You're all very nice and I appreciate your input. Still waiting on MrAndrew to quit choking and pass that dutchie already! :D

Thanks again!

What a great thread (sorry to stir a dormant one from slumber) ... I've been Librarythinging for a good while now, and though I do access GR occasionally I find it clutzy and slow and generally unappealing ... I venture there only when facebook orders me to do so (and I always do what Mark Zuckerberg tells me to do ;-) ) ...

So yes, I'm a LT fan, but to my shame I have rarely ventured into the groups and threads and blah blah blah ... (I did that for a while at Abebooks, but became very confused there). So perhaps I should ...

That’s a great thread! Thanks for sharing guys.