...i buy books. Unfortunately, reading them takes longer, so there's a bit of disconnect in my library. But it works well for reference. Having at last cataloged my hardcovers and paperbacks, there's always more to add.
LibraryThing handles online book cataloging well (allowing me to resort by Dewey or Rating or ISBN or alpha on the fly). Delicious Library for the Mac does it offline very well (and very similarly), but with a few differences. The latter allows for inclusion of music and other media and even reads in your iTunes library by default. Also, it can use your iSight camera to scan barcodes from media, making record entry trivial. It even has options for a barcode scanner, if you happen to have one.
As to reading, there's a lot of press (well, html publish actually) recently about the Amazon Kindle. And some libraries provide access to Safari Books Online. But i still prefer the physical manifestation of manuscript. I can use the index to find topics and flip to them quickly, keep my fingers on the different sections, access the book wherever i am, don't have to worry (much) about getting it wet.... There's many reasons to like books. They're solid and dense and smell awesome. Plus they look good on shelves! Now if you'll excuse me, i need to think about dinner and what to wear tonight.
