CueCat, Mirrormask librarian, and Lucien
Originally uploaded by Hatchibombotar.

Going back to before we were married, my wife, Shanon, and I have several times given each other the same gift (wind chimes, juggling balls, etc.). It’s kind of like “The Gift of the Magi,” but without the irony; all sweet, no bitter. We did it again this year, by each giving the other a lifetime membership to LibraryThing. (I am hatchibombotar, she is bibliowench if you want to find us on the site.) She went the extra mile (and proved that she didn’t just think of it two days before Christmas like I did) by also getting me the CueCat, a cute little barcode reader that makes it very easy to enter items from you library to LibraryThing.

I have written about LibraryThing before and commented on their blogs, LibraryThing Blog and Thingology. I think it is a very cool site, and I believe I have said before that someone needs to get Tim Spalding (Mr. Thing) an honorary MLIS for all the provocative, interesting stuff he has been doing and saying. But I haven’t actually spent tons of time on the site, or cataloged a large collection of books. That’s about to change!

I still don’t know how interested I am in putting in every book in my house. Up till now, I have been using LT mostly to keep track of the books I had recently read. I realized that by entering all the books I get out of the library, I can easily remember what books I have recently consulted, or–more importantly–read to my sons.

For instance, I can’t remember what version of the Bremen Town Musicians I read with my son, Luke, last year. He wants me to check it out again, but I forget the author/illustrator (besides the Brothers Grimm, of course). So we checked out a different edition, which he also likes. This time, I put that edition in my LT catalog, tagged it with “ppld” for the Pikes Peak Library District, where we found the book, and next time he wants it, I’ll be able to locate it easily enough.

In the photo are other library-related gifts from Shanon: the chap in the spectacles is Lucien, the librarian of The Dreaming; the fellow whose body appears to be made of books is the librarian of Mirrormask. They’ll go quite nicely with the Giles action figure I got from Shanon when she left her last librarian job.