What do you think?
Go to the Site talk group to tell us what you think!
How does it work?
This feature harnesses the collective power of LibraryThing's thousands of users and their collections. The "similarly tagged" recommendations also use the tags that many LibraryThing users have applied to their books.
"People with your books also have" is fairly self-explanatory. Instead of the "people who buy X also buy Y" calculations of online retail stores, LibraryThing examines what people actually own. This works much better because people don't just buy books for themselves, and because a collection amassed over time is a better representation of one's interest than what one buys over a short period of time on one particular site.
"Similarly-tagged books" (AKA "Contaguinous" books) finds books on similar topics to the books in your library. Rather than using your own tags—and not everyone uses tags—it uses the most significant tags applied by the entire LibraryThing community.
What's up with fiction and non-fiction?
Recommendations are divided into fiction and non-fiction, the determination of genre decided by a rather simple, quick hack. (At present, this is the only place it shows up.) Some books are wrongly categorized; in the future it may be possible to change them. Others are inherently in a gray area. Are memoirs fiction? Is Snoopy fiction? What about Manga?
The distinction was put in place because the "similar libraries" feature can throw up some odd suggestions. Programming books, for example, very often throw up science fiction recommendations, and sometimes even the reverse is true. This isn't surprising, if you think about it, but it can be disquieting. Someone might well ask "Why all the programming books? I don't do any programming!"
Book recommendations for ungratefulwench
Choose a recommendation list:
- People with your books also have: fiction / non-fiction books
- Similarly-tagged books: fiction / non-fiction
- Special-sauce recommendations: fiction / non-fiction NEW!
- Most popular books you don't have: fiction / non-fiction