That's an old line from the past. As with most things nowadays, you can now view a person's bookshelf virtually.

Do you "LibraryThing"?

I do - it's a great service developed by a fellow named Tim Spaulding. He's a library guy who had a vision that people could easily catalog personal book collections online and make them available (or not) publicly. One can search his or her own personal collection of books from anywhere - even from one's cell phone. (Please don't do it driving though, 'k?)

It's so simple to use. Enter title words, or author names - the bibliographic databases polled to find the bibliographic records include Amazon and the Library of Congress. Click on the title that matches with what you have, and bingo! The record is now part of your collection!

You can review your books so others can read them. You can "un-suggest" books for books you wouldn't suggest ANYone read!

LibraryThing is a social networking service for people who read books! Totally cool. You can see who else has the books you do - a statistics feature shows a whole bunch of things.

Tag your own books with your own keywords to find them easily.

And totally free for the first 200 books - after that you have two options. $10 a *year* or $25 for a lifetime subscription. Either way - SUCH a deal!

I don't know Tim personally, so these are only my own enthusiastic endorsements. Tim, from one librarian to a librarian - ya done good!