LibraryThing

LibraryThing
Type of site
Catalog and community
Owner
Created byTim Spalding
URLwww.librarything.com
RegistrationFree
LaunchedAugust 29, 2005; 19 years ago (2005-08-29)
Current statusActive

LibraryThing is a social cataloging web application for storing and sharing book catalogs and various types of book metadata. It is used by authors, individuals, libraries, and publishers.

Based in Portland, Maine,[1] LibraryThing was developed by Tim Spalding and went live on August 29, 2005, on a freemium subscriber business model, because "it was important to have customers, not an 'audience' we sell to advertisers." They focused instead on making a series of products for academic libraries. Motivated by the cataloguing opportunities and financial challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the service went "free to all" on March 8, 2020, while maintaining a promise never to use advertising on registered users.[2] As of February 2021, it has 2,600,000 users and more than 155 million books catalogued,[3] drawing data from Amazon and from thousands of libraries that use the Z39.50 cataloguing protocol.

  1. ^ "LibraryThing – Send us money".
  2. ^ "LibraryThing Is Now Free to All « The LibraryThing Blog". blog.librarything.com. Retrieved March 30, 2022.
  3. ^ "Zeitgeist Overview". LibraryThing. Retrieved February 8, 2021.