We’ve used LibraryThing around here for awhile and really like the interface, functionality, and the community. So when Google recently announced My Library, a new feature in Google Book Search, I had to check it out.

The My Library feature is easy to use: I searched for the books we’ve read in my book club and added them in a few minutes. I didn’t find all the books I looked for: Dot in the Universe by Lucy Ellman, with its improbable combination of reincarnation and possum illustrations, was not present, nor was MFK Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf, replete with culinary options for dealing with improbable combinations. So you won’t see those books in either my cover view . . .

. . . or my list view.
I guess they are not included in Google Book Search (yet). While I wasn’t looking for them, my search for “Dot in the Universe” garnered me a number of books containing that phrase. Also, Google Book Search gave me an option to search for “Dot” in a library. I did, I found her, and if I had logged into WorldCat, I could have added her to my account there. Dot in the universe, indeed.

I mostly use Google Book Search to search inside books (on purpose). Last week I was trying to find out who wrote a poem called “Reverse Living” which was “possibly in a book by Jack Kornfield.” A Google Book Search (first hit) found that the poem, by Norman Glass, appears in Jack Canfield’s Chicken Soup for the College Soul This still seems rather miraculous to me. I can now use Google Book Search to search only My Library collection to find out if Thomasina was in McEwan’s Atonement or Stoppard’s Arcadia.

My Library also has tagging, reviewing, rating and sharing options. There isn’t a widget yet. I plan to show it in some instruction sessions this fall to see what students and faculty think of it.