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Member: Stbalbach

CollectionsPre-LibraryThing (59), Your library (493), Wishlist (11), Favorites (50), All collections (563)

Reviews462 reviews

Tagstravel literature (34), outdoor literature (12), global warming (8), middle ages (7), climate change (7), classic literature (6), travel (6), environment (5), travel writing (5), robert louis stevenson (5) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

GroupsMedieval Europe, Travel and Exploration literature

Favorite authorsAlphonse Daudet, Edward P. Jones, Andrew X. Pham, Émile Zola (Shared favorites)

Favorite librariesMarilyn J. Praisner Branch Library (Fairland) - Montgomery County Public Libraries (MD)

About meMy homepage "things & stuff" has a bunch of booky projects.

About my libraryI crossed the 200 book threshold entering the ranks of LibraryThing's "life-membership" club in June 2007, the same year I turned forty "in medias res" or "in the middle of our life's journey". How did I get here?

It started with a reading binge in high school of scifi and fantasy to escape from the terrors of adolescence, but pretty soon other priorities interceded and I only read what was assigned in college (BA History 92') and a few good-for-you non-fiction books. Around March 2005 with more leisure time available and the epiphany of how many great books will remain unread before I die, I decided to become a "general reader", which happily coincided with the birth of LibraryThing. To make a clean break with the ghosts of books past, my main library (ie. "Your library") is only those books read since March 05'. Prior books are in the "Pre-LibraryThing" library, a work in progress to remember what I've read in the distant past.

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Database fields maintained:

Standard: Title, Author, Picture, Date Acquired, Publication

Custom:

Date = Date of first edition, not the date of my particular editions publication (which is in the publication field).

Comment = Number of pages

Summary = $ how much I paid for the book (c.f. Date Acquired).

Date read = "Date read" is slightly coded - the "day" field is the book number for that month. So if I read 7 books in June, the 5th book would be 06/05/2006 and the 7th book would be 06/07/2006 (based on order of completion). The best way to view my library is sorted by "date read".

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I've written a unix script that will monitor a list of LT author pages, and email whenever a new work is added. I initially wrote it to know when new books come out by favorite authors (rather than hit or miss at the book store or review periodicals), but found it is also useful to monitor when works need to be combined. It is particularly useful for keeping up to date with little known authors who only publish sporadically without much fanfare (which is the majority of authors).

It is available here:

http://bachlab.balbach.net/nb

See nb.txt for documentation - you'll need a unix shell and very basic unix skills.

NOTE: If it stops working, check back for a new version. The script works by "scraping" HTML output from LibraryThing - thus if LT changes its HTML code (which it seems to do every few months), you'll need a new copy of the script. Last update: February 6, 2009

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LibraryThing "Vital Stats" ("Zeitgeist")

Jan 1, 2009
Members 583,246
Books cataloged 34,059,488
Tags added 44,403,767
Unique works 3,985,740
Total reviews 573,739
Works reviewed 257,937
Ratings 5,396,562
User-contributed covers 1,215,743
Author photos 30,447
User groups 4,624
Forum topics 51,839
Forum messages 922,521
Forum touchstones 610,966

Jan 2, 2008
Members 331,361
Books cataloged 21,882,673
Tags added 28,320,293
Unique works 2,888,986
Total reviews 307,360
Works reviewed 166,936
Ratings 3,362,528
User-contributed covers 678,823
Author photos 16,786
User groups 3,093
Forum messages 379,589
Forum touchstones 289,151

If all of LibraryThing could be distilled into a single number, the "Unique works" would be a prime candidate for the most important. If we imagine all the possible books we have to choose from, how big is that, how big is the book universe? Estimates are over 60 million or more unique books in the world, based on library holdings, but most of those we would never want to read (manuals, translations, etc). If the "sample" of LibraryThing is a measure, we have a sense of how big the "book universe" really is, of the books one would actually read and own. No doubt this number will continue to grow with LibraryThing, but it is probably in the same order of magnitude. It's awesome and inspiring, yet also tangible and concrete to see the unknown vastness defined.

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How do you rate this book?

Scoring a book with 5 (or 10) stars is tricky. A score can be based on how one personally felt about a book; how one recommends it to others; its critical reputation as a classic among scholars. So for example, I might give Voltaire's Candide 3, 4 of 5 stars, respectively. There is the money issue- some might rank it higher if it was a free read, but perhaps not so high if paying for it. Or for fans of a particular genre or interest, it can have a higher score than for general readers. There is "score stuffing" - that is, most people give it a 3 but I might find it unfair, so I stuff a max score to drive up the average (not that I do this -often). There is also ranking based on criteria such as plot, or style. These thoughts and more weigh into scoring- and when you consider lots of people are making the same choices, using their own internal metrics, consciously or not, consistently or not- hidden and unknown- it's a wonder ranking is any use at all, and not just throwing darts. Yet.. miraculously ranking seems to work in a "wisdom of the crowds" gauge of a book. Here is my sort of codified scoring "system":

*0.5-2.5 - Not recommended at all, with some various degree of dislike, unhappy about reading/buying it. I don't score many books here because I choose books carefully beforehand. However a lot of books would probably fall into this category if I were, for instance, to read books randomly off the LOC shelves (note to self: try this sometime).

*3 to 3.5 - Decent book but has problems. Recommended with reservation. A "YMMV" book, depending what you like.

*4.0 - Solid good book. Not a classic, not a dud. No real problems, everything one can expect from a good book. Recommend to anyone who is interested. Most books I read are here.

*4.5 - A minor classic. Hope to re-read at least once again. Will likely still be in print and being read 40+ years from now.

*5 - Classic. Outstanding, re-read for a lifetime. Likely still in print and being read 80+ years from now.

Most of my books end up in the 4.0 category because I am careful to pick good books to begin with. Sometimes I deviate from the system and give 4.5 or 5 stars to books I just really like, and lower scores to books that are probably "classic". It's not a ridged standard, but in general this is how I look at it. It's also a standard that has evolved with time so some of my older scoring is probably not as consistent, and no doubt my views may change with time. One problem with this system is it is "4.0 heavy" and doesn't use the full 10-point scale very fluidly. On the other hand simplicity has its advantages, and it probably better mirrors how the rest of the world scores: on average most books average ranking seem to be in the 3.5 to 4.0 range.

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Pax Hit Counter. Unique hits. Begun 1-1-09

Oct to Dec 2008 = 148

Homepagehttp://bachlab.balbach.net/stephen.html

Also onmetafilter [num], Wikipedia

Membership LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway

Real nameStephen Balbach

LocationAshton, Maryland

Emailstephenbalbach.net

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/Stbalbach (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Stbalbach (library)

Common KnowledgeSeries (83), Awards (216), Characters (1671), Places (532)

Member sinceSep 14, 2005