I first came across LibraryThing in February 2007. It is an online service that allows you to create a catalogue of your books. I signed up for a free account (up to 200 books) and began slowly adding to it.

A book-related problem that used to affect me was library fines. While normally on top of returning books on time, a constantly changing selection of volumes borrowed and the library’s rather haphazard date stamping made it was hard to keep up and sometimes I would find one was overdue. LibraryThing became a solution – I added the books borrowed (easily selected by plugging in the ISBN) to my catalogue along with a clear note of the date they were due back. I was able to stay on top of due dates and was growing my virtual library of what I had read, as well as what I physically owned.

Since then, the library has released a handy online portal that deals with the due-date problem but I still like to keep a list of what I have borrowed. And so, as I neared the 200 volume barrier, I decided to sign up for “life membership”; just short of