ORONO – What do you do in Maine with a graduate degree in Greek and Latin studies? In the case of Tim Spalding, who also honed skills as a Web developer and publisher, you launch www.LibraryThing.com.

Created as a way for Spalding to catalog his own library, he did not realize that the site, launched in August 2005, would garner national attention, including recent articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Wall Street Journal.

Spalding also was named one of this year’s “Movers and Shakers” by Library Journal.

Spalding will talk about LibraryThing and its recent developments 3-4 p.m. Tuesday, April 1, in Special Collections on the third floor at Fogler Library, University of Maine. Spalding’s presentation is co-sponsored by the Friends of Fogler Library, the UM English department, and the new-media program.

Based in Portland, LibraryThing is an online service that allows book lovers to create catalogs of their own libraries that can be accessed from any location with an Internet connection. Users can add books by entering titles, authors or ISBNs.

LibraryThing then searches the Library of Congress, all five national Amazon sites and more than 250 world libraries for cataloging information about the book. The site can generate recommendations for future reading based on library selections, and there is an option to join a social space to connect to other people with similar libraries. Some have called it the MySpace or Facebook for books.

Recently, the site added a new Local section which provides a map of literary venues wherever you live, be it Bangor or Paris.

Spalding explains on the site’s blog, “LibraryThing Local is a handy reference, but it’s also interactive. You can show off your favorite bookstores and libraries – mine include the Harvard Bookstore, Shakespeare and Company and the Boston Athenaeum – and keep track of interesting events. Then you can find out who else loves the places you do, and who else is going to events.”

“What I love about Tim’s project with LibraryThing,” said Steve Evans, associate professor of English, “is that it demonstrates that bibliophiles need not be technophobes. Basically, it takes the culture of reading and book collecting and gives it the digital platform it deserves – one that enriches the literacy not just of individual readers, but of whole communities.

“Some of these already existed,” he said, “while some are emerging within, and because of, the new media context. These communities now have a new instrument for connecting with one another on the basis of a shared passion for literature. I’ve already put more than a thousand books of poetry from my own collection online, and added the UMaine New Writing Series to the new local feature. Having Tim Spalding visit campus offers us an great opportunity for exploring the future of literacy in the digital world.”

Spalding’s presentation is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served.