This really has little to do with RSS, but it is such a useful and clever service that I can't resist writing about it.

Tim Spalding of Library Thing today announced LibraryThing for Libraries with its first implementation, the Danbury Library (in Connecticut).

Tim explains the whys and wherefores in great detail in his post, but the upshot of it all is that when you search for a book in the Danbury library's catalog, in addition to the catalog and holdings data, you also see:

• Tags from LibraryThing's 200,000 members and 13 million books;
• Other editions and translations of the book you are looking at;
• Tags entered by LibraryThing's users describing the item you are viewing; and
• Similar titles.

The last three items only show books held by Danbury's library. And LibraryThing has restricted the tags that appear in the Danbury catalog so that tags that describe location of the book or the tagger's intent (for example, "at the beach house" or "to read") are not included.