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What people are saying about LibraryThing for Libraries |
Librarians on LibraryThing"John Klima, the Teen/Systems Librarian at the Franklin Township Public Library in Somerset NJ, recently blogged about his podcast on SLJ.com that details how he is using Library Thing as an RA tool for teens. What a great idea -- simple to set up, relatively easy to maintain, and (best of all) free." "a mix of good, reliable, professionally developed metadata, lots of options for user input and customization, and numerous ways to connect with other people who enjoy the books and authors you enjoy." Tom Peters, Smart Libraries Newsletter "Cataloging content is only one of the amazing parts of Library Thing. Anyone who visits the site can learn about titles in a particular genre, with a particular theme, with a certain type of character, and so on. It's a great tool to use when creating "more like this" lists and to connect with readers with similar interests." "The website has the atmosphere of community where members share resources and reviews, seek out others who share their interests, discuss their ideas." "What I believe I enjoy most about LibraryThing is the FRBR-ization; seeing all the different covers and editions collocated in one place." "It has been invaluable to me for those times when someone is looking for a recommended read. Although I am always reading, I have a hard time remembering the last book I read, never mind any titles beyond that. With just mouse click I have my reading library at my fingertips and can offer titles from any genre and to any reader. My list displays with book titles, book covers and I am able to rate the book, tag, and connect with other people who are reading the same books." "Library Thing is the future of book management. I'm convinced of this." "hands down, my favorite tool of 2005" "a clever, very low-tech and vey affordable way (i.e., free) to automate the process of displaying jackets for newly acquired books." "The recommendations one gets here beat anything I could find on Novelist (my favorite authors are too obscure) or amazon (buying gifts for people or collecting on a couple subjects or authors in a year really pollutes the data). Instead, librarything data is based on what one decides to keep in one's collection over one's life and thus this sample provides better fodder for a reader's advisory tool." "great for letting a reader know what other readers with their interests are reading. Isn't that what we want a readers' advisory to do? Wouldn't it be great if we could link these to our own library catalogs so readers could advise one another?" "the social networking potentiality alone is enough to send the average book-geek into uncontrollable spasms of wonder" "A librarian's dream!" "One of the best ways for a library to use LibraryThing requires the least amount of work. You don't have to create an account or add your collection or pay or anything. Instead, you can use it as a collection development tool. Just do a search for any title and you'll get a list of books that 'People who own this book also own….' ...Foreign language works are also available, which makes LibraryThing a better choice for those kinds of books than Books In Print, which is pretty sparse in the non-English category." "In celebration of last week's Teen Read Week, I added the nominations for the Teens' Top Ten to my Library Thing account. I've read several of them, but Library Thing will help me keep the titles handy to use for recommendations or programs." "Social networking technologies often allow for people to express their own opinions. A teen can set up their own blog in less than five minutes, post a comment on a forums board, or share what materials they are reading through LibraryThing." "I can see it as valuable in compiling lists of books for readers' advisory." "LibraryThing is a service near and dear to the hearts of many librarians who have long wanted a catalog of their very own." Michelle Boule, ALA TechSource Blog "It's so easy to use and a great idea to be able to keep track of the titles I have read. I suggest all our borrowers should access this facility. How many times have we been asked for a list of past loans that a borrower has had?? This way they could keep track of their own titles." "Part of the joy of LibraryThing is the communal nature of the experience. When I add a book to LibraryThing, I can immediately see who else in LibraryThing owns this book, how they rated the book, what they said about it, and what else they're reading." "a fast and good starting place for book suggestions/readers' advisory." "A very cool idea! We could do this on our main page or for our individual branch blogs, Myspaces, etc. " |
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Library Publications on LibraryThing"The first reaction which occurs when this LT to personal library is always the same: "But then, everyone can take place on a leaflet? "And in this "Everybody" means "anyone" ... "Integrating LibraryThing for Libraries into our Horizon ILS was a very simple process. We started by contacting the people at LibraryThing through their website (www.librarything.com/forlibraries). The developers graciously allowed us to “test drive” LibraryThing for Libraries for three months." "Polaris Library Systems has signed a partnership agreement with LibraryThing for Libraries (LTFL) that will allow the ILS vendor’s customers to integrate LTFL functionality into the Polaris PowerPAC, giving them the ability to browse tags, find similar titles, and easily locate other editions. LTFL allows libraries to enrich their online catalog with Library 2.0 applications, using data from the public LibraryThing database of 40 million records, features such as tags, recommendations, reviews, and ratings." "LTFL provides a fun browsing tool for finding related items by user-generated tags. In terms of usefulness, this browsing feature can be compared to the “related items” search in Web of Science based on items cited and items cited by others, as that too links materials based on user." Library Hi Tech "As the library community strives to create our ideal next-generation catalog, we are hampered by our lack of time, money, and collective programming ability. Until we and our vendors heed John Blyberg's excellent rallying cry for truly library-centric innovation, we have to find other ways. LibraryThing for Libraries is blazing the way to the catalog of the future, not only by shaking up how our catalogs work but also in the way they do business: by building direct partnerships with libraries, librarians, and patrons." Kate Sheehan (Coordinator of Library Automation, Danbury Public Library), Library Journal, netconnect, "one of the Net's sleeper hits, a testament to both the word-of-mouth power of the blogosphere and the enduring passion for books." Kathy Ishizuka, School Library Journal, "I've seen the future of online catalogs, and its name is LibraryThing." Steve Cohen, Public Libraries magazine (March/April 2006) "LibraryThing is a highly social service: find similar users, join groups, subscribe to watch lists or RSS feeds of your favorite LibraryThing catalogers, discuss books, and comment on others' collections." Melissa L. Rethlefsen, Library Journal, "the love child of Melvyl Dewey and Web 2.0. ...Right now, LibraryThing has the feel of a beta product being developed by someone with smarts, passion and an understanding of what users value. It's got real promise." Mary Ellen Bates - Tip of the Month "One of the most convenient features is a mobile page that allows you to access LibraryThing.com from your mobile phone. Nothing better than standing in the used bookstore and looking to see if you already have a title. I can think of several instances when I personally could have used that feature to save duplicate purchases!" New England Historic Genealogical Society eNews, No. 312, March 7, 2007 "here are many good features in LibraryThing, but the most useful one is probably the ability to add your own personal tags to any of your books - even the name of someone to whom you've lent one of your treasures." inCite : March 2007 : Webbs web Bibliotech Web, the Intersection of Libraries and Technology : October 2007 "I'm in awe of the results. "Personally, I love the similar books feature - and the other editions and translations. Tags are excellent - and I think that they are can make an important addition to the search and discovery process - but think that similar books could be invaluable from a research perspective. I can’t believe that most of us don’t already have this type of thing in our catalogs (ok, yes I can)... LibraryThing for Libraries helps to pull multiple editions and translations together in a much more user-friendly manner." |
"What this does is enable and disable LTFL through the Koha Enhanced Content system preference page. Simply enter your LTFL account number (found on your LibraryThing for Libraries Account page), decide where you’d like LTFL content to display (in tabs or under other bibliographic details) and enable it. No need to edit Koha templates. "For my money Librarything is the best purchase I made in the last couple of years Librarything for Libraries is a wondrous add-on that you can inject right into your catalog with a simple java script. It gives you a taxonomy and provides similar." "The value of having LibraryThing for Libraries content far outweighs the empty labels for those items without extra content." LIT Minutes 28 May 2009 "Despite chatter about the Internet making them obsolete, many local libraries have found ways to embrace, utilize and thrive on new technologies that allow them to provide new services to the community." "Many small libraries use web resource LibraryThing to help sort their inventory, as do readers all over the world who want to keep track of their tomes. The site is now urging users to form FlashMobs to catalog complete library inventories. They explain that the event usually entails a gathering where "LibraryThing members descend on some small library with laptops and CueCat barcode scanners, catalog their books in LibraryThing, eat some pizza, talk some talk and leave them with a gleaming new LibraryThing catalog."" "The entire process has been very easy on our end. I am sure this was a tremendous amount of work for the LT team, but for us, it was just a copy and paste. "For anyone wondering if it works with the Dynix/Horizon HIP OPAC, let me tell you that it works a treat :-)" "An example of social networking having an outcome that can add value to a 'traditional' application." "I also want to encourage you to go straight to their catalog and play with it yourself! It’s very cool! Congrats to Tim Spalding and his LibraryThing Team and to Kate Sheehan, Danbury’s Coordinator of Library Automation, for making this happen and being a role model for all the libraries who know their OPAC sucks and are positive that things can only improve." "No need to say it again... oh, what the heck: I have seen the future of library catalogs and its name is Library Thing. " "It is way, way, way better than any commercial online catalog that libraries buy." Superpatron - Friends of the Library, for the net [LTFL lets you add to your catalog] "A Tag Cloud, which can do wonders to supplement our often obscure subject headings." "I am as big a fan now as I was before. W00t! Congratulations to the Danbury Library and to LibraryThing." "Library Thing has some great potential beyond just the personal. And true to their name, they're expanding to ... libraries!" | |
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