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Online Resources for Collectors
People love to collect things, and when the weather outside turns cold and foul, these collectors often will take advantage of the time to organize, catalog or otherwise enjoy their collections. For collectors and hobbyists, the Internet offers tremendous opportunities to find information about their collections, meet and share ideas with other collectors and locate software and other resources for organizing their collections.
World Collectors Net http://www.worldcollectorsnet.com/ offers an exhaustive array of bulletin boards for collectors of all kinds, including art deco, PEZ dispensers, Beanies, Hummel and Wedgwood. More than 100 different kinds of collections are represented, and collectors are welcome to post ads as well. The site also maintains a database of links to other Web sites for collectors.
Want to find out more about your antiques or collectibles? Wayne Maddox, an antiques store proprietor and collectibles expert, publishes the syndicated "Antique Talk" column every week. His Antique Talk Web site http://www.antiquetalk.com/ archives more than 175 of his articles and is fully searchable.
Barbara Crews has been the About.com Guide to Collectibles for more than five years now, and has written exhaustively about all kinds of things people collect, with a new article every week http://collectibles.about.com/. She gives pointers on how to find and use price guides, resources on buying, selling and insuring collectibles, and hand-picked links to thousands of collectibles-related Web sites.
A unique Web service for collectors is the online collection tracker. While many collectors will catalog their collections in a database, these services allow users to maintain their database online, letting others see what they have, and providing an easy way to list ads and wanted items.
One example of this kind of service is Comics Tracker http://www.comicstracker.com/. Registration is required, but the database is free, and with it comic book collectors can keep track of their collections, run reports to determine which issues they are missing and post ads to buy and sell comics. Similarly, there are online tracking services for compact discs http://www.cd-tracker.com/, video games http://www.videogametracker.com/ and even plush toys http://www.plushtoytracker.com/.
For those who like to collect books, another online tracking service called SingleFile http://books.singlefile.com/ might be of interest. Up to 25 books may be catalogued for free to try out the service. Some of SingleFile's features include adding books just by entering the ISBN, tracking books that you've purchased and not yet read, and a service for lending books to your friends.
Whatever it is that you collect, the Internet can provide a wide array of information, services and software for you to make your collecting experience all the more enjoyable.
—Stewart Brower and Laura Taddeo, University Libraries