may 5, 1811 (sun.)

"... [S]ober interest tells me I should leave off buying books," Mr. Jefferson wrote a few days ago in response to a friend suggesting another title to add to his library of thousands.

Yeah. Right. This has all the credibility of a drunkard swearing off rum.

Well, today's mail brought yet another offer, this time a subscription to the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. He has declined, graciously, citing a surfeit of encyclopedias on his shelves already.

He's being responsible. For now.

[from 200 Years Ago At Monticello.]

public access to information -- you're doin' it right

Grant Allows U.Va. Press to Make Founders' Documents Online Free to Public

(October 11, 2010 UVA Today)

A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both.

-- James Madison

Information is the currency of democracy.

-- Thomas Jefferson

library thing

This gets to one of those changing cultural issues, namely, privacy. Within the memory of middle-aged adults, a person's reading habits were considered to be private information, shared with only a few close friends. After all, what one reads discloses who one is. (Although it's not necessarily a perfect match. For instance, some people regularly read books with which they heartily disagree -- precisely because they want to learn about (or laugh at) a different point of view.)

But upon consideration, this kind of self-disclosure comes more naturally than other kinds. After all, I'm a book-pusher both by inclination and by profession.

Library Thing is but one of several book-sharing applications out there. The main reason I haven't signed up for it before is that I already have enough trouble keeping my Facebook Visual Bookshelf and the "Books" part of "Interests" on MySpace up to date. So I decided to make this list something different. Instead of adding books as I read them, I'm listing some favorites. These books aren't necessarily ones I've read recently, nor are they necessarily books I own. For example, one is from the bookshelf of my second grade classroom.

In general, I greatly prefer Library Thing for its flexibility, ease of use, and robustness. I like the ability to edit all parts of the record, especially the ability to easily change the cover to match the book you're actually thinking of, and even upload a cover if need be. The one thing I don't like is the free version's paltry 200-book limit.

Just for fun, while we're on the topic of book lists, here are a couple of websites that list books owned by couple of more famous people:

Thomas Jefferson (1783)
Rudolph Valentino (1926)