LibraryThing is a nice collaborative networking initiative (i’ll stop using the 2.0 word), allowing you to put together a list of the books you own and love. This is very nice, because you can find other people who read the same things, talk about it, get recommendations, check out the zeitgeist and so on.
More to the point, you can add a corresponding widget to your blog showing books of your library.
But. There’s a catch (which is also LibraryThing’s business model): the books they list are imported from amazon.com. They need a sizeable database of books to work with after all. So when you put a LibraryThing widget on your site, you’re in fact including adverts for amazon. And i don’t like adverts on my blog.
On the other hand, i love books. Blogs are meant to share media, after all, and print is the first mass-medium.
So i compromised. I didn’t make myself an Amazon associate, clicking on the covers doesn’t make me any richer. I’m just showing my books. And i put a warning on top of the widget, so people know who they’re funding, should they feel the compulsion.
Hope that cleans the slate, though i’m not too sure. I’ll have to meditate on that one.