[Think of a Something Thursday]

It’s the season of decluttering (wait, when isn’t it?) and a friend at work gave me a large box of kid books. Yay! Sometimes I wish my peers had more kids my age, but it’s times like this when I’m glad I lag behind.

I’ve been handing the books out to the kids one or two at a time, and they are loving them, adding them to the bedtime book rotation, piling each book atop their loads of others. But our books are really slightly out of control. Not that I mind that much, but it makes it difficult to buy books for the kids; I certainly can’t keep track of them all.

So I started looking at the software options out there, and reviewed three in time for Thanksgiving weekend. We’re going to spend Black Friday selling outgrown kid’s stuff in a bit of a Black Friday garage sale, and entering our books get organized. We’ll have an idea of what we’ve got, and we can share this list with friends and family looking to add to our collection.

http://www.bookbump.com http://www.librarything.com http://www.readerware.com

BookBump http://www.bookbump.com/

Book Bump is pretty. Its look is similar to iTunes, but hosted on the BookBump site. I entered a few books as a test, but it seemed at first try as though not all of my books were saved on the list. I like the drag-and-drop categorization, and the instant price look up: handy for setting up piles of books to sell or donate.

There doesn’t seem to be a sharing feature, but I was annoyed by it enough that I wouldn’t select it for my “sharing site” at this point anyway. It might have been saving the books, or I might have been doing something wrong. But my main problem with it at this point is Flash. I like Flash, but not as a tool to share (and I don’t see a sharing feature) my list with friends.

Overall, it’s a good tool in progress. They’re working on sharing features and cart/site integration features, so stay tuned for new features.

Price: Free for now.

LibraryThing http://www.librarything.com/

Library Thing is also an easy-to-use tool. Simple registration; free and paid level limits of features. Booklists are public and easy to share with friends and family. This will be the site we use tomorrow to create our booklist to share.

I’ve not tested for export features, but you can integrate your lists into a blog or other site.

Overall, easy to use, a nice hosted solution. Still in beta - I can’t wait to see what else they add.

Price: Enter 200 books for free, set up a $10 yearly subscription, or $25 lifetime subscription.

ReaderWare http://www.readerware.com/

Nice site; and a quick run through of the software was easy to understand. It’s richer than Library Thing in that you can also track your music CDs and DVDs.

If you’re looking for a heavier-duty tracking software, this is the way to go, I think. Barcode reader, self-hosted software, multiple versions including a client-server solution if you and friends or family are running a book, movie, and/or DVD business out of your homes.

Robust import-export features as well.

Overall, more of a heavy-duty solution for serious collectors or sellers; also available in a PalmOS version if you simply need to keep your collection on tap.

Price: Free 30 day trial; purchase price varies on the options you choose.