Tuesday Thinger: Get This Book! (New Feature)

Welcome to another week of Tuesday Thingers! We always love to hear from regular participants as well as new people.

This week's Thinger topic is another great topic from Caite, over at A Lovely Shore Breeze. (Caite!! I don't know what I would have done without you! A LOOOOONG night last night had me dreading the computer and my state of brain-deaded-ness today! Thank you!)... Caite pointed out a brand new feature that Library Thing has added as of November 16th, and it is pretty neat! The programmers over at Library Thing have worked hard for over two months to create a new feature that will help us users of the site to see where the books we are looking up are available... more details here.


This is easy... you go to a book page, and there is a new link on the right hand side under the "Quick Links" section called "Get this book." On the picture to the left, it is the 3rd from the bottom. When you click on it, it gives you a page that explores all the ebook versions available, online audio, and regular books (including swap sites, used books, new books, local stores, etc).



Why is this important???? I can think of two really great reasons, and I'm sure you can think of even more. :) First, if you are looking for a specific book (on your wishlist, or want to give as a gift) you can see the versions available, and a whole range of prices at one glance, including swap sites, which is great, especially if you have credits available somewhere! Second, if you are ready to trim down your bookshelves, you can see how many copies are "wanted" on swap sites, and you can see the low used prices on many sites.

Over at the LT blog, they used Romeo and Juliet as an example... here is the page. I took the time to look up a few books myself (see below if you are interested... the links on the title should take you to the "Get" page for the title, and if you are logged in, you should see your Local info instead of mine... crossing fingers)

Questions: Have you explored this great new feature? Can you think of any times this would be handy to use? Were any of the Local (bookstores or libraries) resources surprising? How did the Swap sites seem? Think you will use this feature in the future?

My Answer: Ok - So I decided to put this one to the test... and looked up Sound of Sleigh Bells by Cindy Woodsmall (a book that I'm really interested in reading for the holidays - yes, I'm a holiday book junkie!) Here are my thoughts:

- I'm REALLY impressed with the Local results (store, likely stock on hand, phone number, address and distance - yeah!!)

- I was SAD when I saw the swap sites... over 100 people are wanting it on Paperback Swap, which is where I try to go for swaps... with NONE available for swap at any other site listed

- I LOVED that I could see this all in one glance!



While Sound of Sleigh Bells is a new book, I decided to look up one of my trusty favorites, Ruth - A Love Story by Ellen Gunderson Traylor, and the results were great!

-For new and used prices at online bookstores, there was quite a range of prices available (great)

-Locally, there didn't appear to be any available, short of calling a library

- Swap sites :) There were copies available at PBS, and I could see where there were copies wanted as well!

Overall, it was a lot of fun to check out this new feature.


AND a HUGE thank you to Caite again for helping me with this week's topic! Hugs!!

Looking forward to reading everyone's answers!!

~ Wendi

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