I met Sandra Cisneros tonight! She was our speaker for my school's speaker series this year, and I got to chat with her early and then listen to her wonderful reading. She was genuine and friendly and inspirational, and I'm giddy even thinking about it now. Yay!

For all of those Little House fans out there, I stumbled across this NPR Xmas special from a few years ago. It's an hour long reading of excerpts from the books with songs from the (so far) two collections of songs mentioned in the books (the CDs' producers are hoping to put out ten CDs in all).

I read the Trumpeter of Krakow (ehh)and Hitty (pretty good) for the 20s. I have one more I am waiting that is short stories.

For the 30s , 40s and 50s I have read The Cat Who Went to Heaven ,The door in the Wall, and Twenty-one Ballons. All were actually very good. I think I could sell 'em all. Of course I have 3 or 4 more I want to read, and that is before we even start the discussion.

Need a good cathartic cry? NYTimes story about two children's librarians killed in a car accident: [link]

Has anyone here ever used Shelfari? If so, thoughts?

Similarily, I know people were using LibraryThing, but then I thought people had liked some other options better--what are the various options out there for cataloguing your books??

Currently I've got mine mostly up to date in LibraryThing (at least, the books I care about), and I like that I can thus be out shopping and look up in their mobile interface what I've got and what I'm missing.

Things I would like integrated into that--some sort of wishlist (so it was easier to see the books I KNOW I'm looking for), a "checked out to friends" option or something, and maybe a "I read this, but don't own it" option (possibly integrated with the "I WANT to own it" option)

Any suggestions? Shall I jump ship from LT? I've already paid for a lifetime membership (it was what, $25?) so it's not a rush, but it's also not going to hurt them if I do.

meara, have you let the LibraryThing people know what options you want? Because they do add things and update fairly often, so if you made a case for them they might built it!

I really want to use a spoilery line from Anathem as a tagline:

“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs,” I said. “We have a protractor.”

I love that line.

I am still using LibraryThing. I've actually adapted its tag system to run a lending system for my new classroom library. I tag every book with a number to represent which copy it is, since LT is fine with adding multiple copies of the same book. When a student borrows it, I tag it with the phrase "checked out" and their name. Books on loan to the library, either by me or another student, are tagged "personal copy - *name*" And so forth. It's a pretty good system, I think. I can click the "Tags" bar and see 1) how many books are checked out, 2) how many books a particular student has checked out, 3) how many students have books checked out, 4) how many of my personal books exist. By doing a search, I can see how many of my personal books are checked out. When i notice a book is missing, I can mark it missing and make a list to post on my wall.

The point being... I still like LibraryThing, and think that creative use of their tags could let you do pretty much everything you want. Though it might be annoying to have to add books you don't really have to your library just to tag them "want to own" - you'd have to play with it, I think.