Tuesday Wanderings & Tuesday Thingers

Elizabeth over at An Adventure in Reading wants to know:

Where is reading taking you today?

It is a summer of change, and not always the kind a person would welcome. I have been laboring in the cotton fields this summer, reluctantly making new friends, and breaking the usual routines. Dad's girlfriend has wormed her way into the house and seems to be trying to erase the memories of mother. There's a college paper to write, the constant struggle to survive with a often misunderstood illness, and the boyfriend who is committed to someone else.

I currently am spending a little time in Louisiana walking in the shoes of Angel Duet, feeling her longing and sadness for what she never had and what she will never be. Or so she believes, anyway.

Unlike Angel, I will not be skipping work today and curling back into bed to sleep. Not for lack of wanting to, mind you. I was up a little too late reading Penelope Przekop's novel, Aberrations, and would more than welcome a little extra sleep. Alas, duty calls.

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Today's question: Cataloging sources. What cataloging sources do you use most? Any particular reason? Any idiosyncratic choices, or foreign sources, or sources you like better than others? Are you able to find most things through LibraryThing's almost 700 sources?

For those not familiar with Library Thing: whenever I add a new book to my TBR collection (books I actually own, not to be confused with my wish list books which are the books I want to get my hands on but haven't yet), I catalog it on the Library Thing site, where I keep a record of all of the books I own. Or most of them, anyway. When cataloging a book, I do a search to locate the book on a catalog source, such as Amazon.com or the Library of Congress, and add it to my library based on what I find. It is really very simple: just a matter of typing in the ISBN number of the book and clicking on that search button. Using a common cataloging source is preferable to creating a new entry manually, especially in a community such as Library Thing. It keeps things nice and tidy, not to mention opens the door for making comparisons and tracking down others who also have the book in their library.

When searching for books I have just acquired and want to add to my Library Thing database, I generally use the Amazon.com search feature simply because it is the default catalog source. I must admit that I hardly ever pay attention to this particular feature. Occasionally, I will come across a book I cannot find on Amazon.com, and then I am forced to look elsewhere. What source I use at that point often depends on what country the book may have originated from. It is not unusual for me to forget to switch back to Amazon.com right away, and so I end up using other catalog sources without realizing it.

Here's a look at my catalog source stats for Library Thing. I had to enter one book manually because I couldn't find it in any of the cataloging sources--and believe me, I tried all sorts of them in my attempt to find the book.

2,154 Amazon.com
32 Amazon.co.uk
5 Amazon.co.jp
3 Library of Congress
1 Manual entry

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There have been a number of contests and drawings for books on line lately. I was trying to be good and not enter too many, but here are a few that caught my attention yesterday:

Lisa over at Minds Alive on the Shelves is giving away a copy of Shining City by Seth Greenland. I remember seeing the book trailer for this one not to long ago (I wish I could remember who posted about it), and got a good laugh out of it. It sounds like an entertaining novel. Check out Lisa's review for more information about the book.

Copies of The Genizah at the House of Shepher by Tamar Yellin are being given away over at She Is Too Fond of Books. This sounds like an intriguing novel, spanning 150 years and over 4 generations, set in Jerusalem.

I was so excited to discover I won Lisa's contest over at Sew What Bags and will soon be the proud owner of one of her hand sewn bags. Thank you, Lisa!