I’m starting this post a little late tonight because I’ve spent the last few hours playing around with a new Web app I found on the lifehack blog today. It’s called aNobii, and it’s an online database designed to help you manage, track, and share your reading library. Apparently there are other sites like aNobii, but this is the first I’ve learned about them. I remember a site a long time ago (the name escapes me) that let users list their books and swap them with other users (which is a feature in aNobii, as well), but it didn’t have the levels of functionality that aNobii does.
How it works: you enter your books, either by ISBN or title, and they are added to your “shelf.” You can make your shelf public in order to start discussions, get recommendations, and meet like minded people. Or you can choose to have your shelf remain private, though I’m not sure why you’d do that. The community has a very diverse, international flavor, and it would be a shame not to take advantage of that.
Once I signed up, I started grabbing armfuls of books from the other room and entering them in the database. It took me about 45 minutes to enter 100+ books. There is also an option to import your existing book list from other sources. You can assign ratings, add comments, and specify if you have finished the books or not. The interface is intuitive and fast — one of the fastest dynamic Web sites I’ve ever used. And speed is key here, because aNobii’s core audience is going to be folks with hundreds of books they’ll want to upload and share.
Once you get your books on your shelf, the social networking aspect of the site comes into play. You can see how many other users have the same books or similar shelves as you do. You have access to discussions about your books and targeted recommendations based on the content of your shelf. And, as I alluded to above, you can designate certain of your books for trading.
Because I just signed up this evening, I haven’t had a chance to try out the trading feature. But it works like this: users create Wish Lists of books they want to read, and aNobii matches the books on your list with books that other users have designated for trading. I’m not really sure how it’s a trade unless you’re trading for money. I think this feature needs some refining before it’s really viable (the very young community needs to grow, too).
Another cool feature of the Wish List portion of the site is how aNobii allows you to customize the Amazon referral links. You can choose between all of the different international Amazon stores, and you can specify which currency to display prices in. For example, I have the Japanese, British, Canadian, and American Amazon stores listing prices in US Dollars for books on my wishlist. When I’ve purchased items from Amazon UK and Amazon Canada in the past, I realized what a pain it is to convert the currency. So I think this is a welcome feature.
Overall, aNobii looks like a very promising Web 2.0 app. I’m a pretty big bibliophile. I have a degree in English, and I worked in a book store for seven years. aNobii was pretty much made for me, and it looks like I’ll be spending even more time there in the next few days.
If you’re interested, you can visit my shelf and be amazed at how many books I own and haven’t read.
