Have you ever not wanted to forget about a book you never quite had time to read but want to, so you kept the book out from the library (if your library allows) for more than a year, renewing it over and over again until someone puts it on hold and you have to return it? I’m asking you this question, whether it’s happened to me is none of your business :-D

Anyway, if you could use a great way to keep track of the books you’ve read, are reading, and want to read, so you can share them with others or remember them yourself, my wife found an excellent site a couple of weeks ago called GoodReads. A free account lets you add books from their database or from Amazon.com, rate and review the books, add to as many “bookshelves” as you want (read: tags), and basically track all that goodness. Now you can return all those books to the library, knowing you can find them later. Or just keep track of what you’re reading and what you’ve read, or use the RSS feed capability to share your favorite reads with others. I mention the service here because it’s where I’ve started keeping track of the technical books I want to remember for my reference and to pass along to others, even if I don’t buy them for my bookshelf. The ability to track the fiction I’m reading is just a nice side-benefit, and the bookshelves feature keeps them all organized. In only a couple of days of using the site, I’d “shelved” 14 books in my account!

If you add enough books, you can also request Librarian status so you may add and edit metadata about the books on the site. My wife had to do this right away of course (and had more than enough books added to her profile in under 24 hours), since she’s a real-life librarian :-) (Did you know librarians need a masters degree? I didn’t either until I married one! Well, I did know before we dated, she didn’t wait to tell me until we were actually married…but I didn’t know until she told me.)