LibraryThing to the rescue

Before our house was on the historical society's tour of homes, one of the things we did to prepare for visitors was to remove several hundred books and eight book cases from the house. As we packed the books into boxes and crates, I recorded them on LibraryThing thinking it would save me time later when I started cataloging our library again. We stored the books in the garage and in the old smokehouse/kitchen.

After the tour (which was December 9th), we brought the bookcases back inside and put the books back on them. I noticed we were missing quite a few Dick Francis books, so I asked the children to go back to the storage buildings and look again. They found a few more boxes of books, but not the ones by Francis. As the weeks passed, I'd send a child or two out to look again. We searched Steve's office. We searched all cupboards and closets in the house. I even asked the girls to look inside their hope chests, but we didn't find those books.

One day Jacy told me she'd found some Dick Francis books in a milk crate, covered with some stuff belonging to Marley. Jacy said that she'd shelved the books with the other Francis books, and would I like to come check and see if that was all of them?

I went upstairs, looked at the Dick Francis books, and said, "That's not all of them. We're still missing some. About 10 or 12. Keep looking."

A few more weeks pass, and by now I'm so tired of not finding the books, that I've offered a reward - $15 to whoever finds the missing Dick Francis books. This sparks a frenzied search by the younger set, while the older ones roll their eyes and say that every place has been searched, there are no other places to look - and at least one mutters that she already found the books, shelved them, and showed me.

I remember that I catalogued those books on LibraryThing. It will help us if I can see what titles we need to look for, right? Or at least count the number catalogued and compare it to the number on the shelf. (I do believe that I can do arithmetic - I even do pretty well at higher math - but I can count... I think.)

Marley goes upstairs to count the books while I tube up LibraryThing to see what Dick Francis novels we're supposed to have. Marley comes back and says, "Thirty-one." And LibraryThing shows us to have.... 30. Ooops. Time for me to apologize and ask for forgiveness.