Welcome to Thing-ology
That's right, LibraryThing is now a two-blog town. The main LibraryThing blog will continue to focus on features and announcements and exciting new things like that, and over here we'll get to go deeper into some of the bigger and more theoretical issues that LibraryThing raises.
So. This is the place where we'll talk about the meanings, methods, and debate around LibraryThing and its features. I expect there to be discussion of Web 2.0, Library 2.0, social software, FRBR and LT's "works" system, folksonomies and taxonomies, and much much more. Information Science! Philosophy! Controversy! To the library world and beyond, people!
To get started, I'm putting together a blogroll and looking for suggestions. Who else should I be following?
So. This is the place where we'll talk about the meanings, methods, and debate around LibraryThing and its features. I expect there to be discussion of Web 2.0, Library 2.0, social software, FRBR and LT's "works" system, folksonomies and taxonomies, and much much more. Information Science! Philosophy! Controversy! To the library world and beyond, people!
To get started, I'm putting together a blogroll and looking for suggestions. Who else should I be following?
posted by Abby at 9:17 PM
20 Comments:
Yay for Thing-ology!
(I think I want to be a doctor of thing-ology. Maybe you could have mail-order certificates or something. ;-)
RJO
A PhD in Thing-ology correspondence school! Perfect.
Abby: We could charge for it!
In 1995, I impishly described myself as an 'ontologist' at a conference. I got an immediate job offer from an XML startup. (Remember BizTalk?)
I think that with a thingology degree (D.Re.), I could jump-start my career again.
Now, all you have to do is get accreditation, possibly from the ALA.
Ah, ontology. The non-philosophical use of the term is something that always irks me. I guess it's really achieved a separate meaning, however, and isn't just ignorance. The same can't be said for the use of "philosophy" for "methodology," something I deplore but, if you look around, also give in to...
An "XML startup"? That's like founding a pens and pencils startup. Successful firms use them well, therefore...
Hmmm. Do I know anyone in authority at the ALA? Oh, damn.
I would be following it.
What's a "blogroll"?
It's like a Kaiser roll, except with links!
Actually, it's that list of other blogs on the margin of many blogs.
This is a great idea, but pardon me for pointing out that it would work much better in a discussion forum format. A blog really doesn't lend itself to back and forth debate.
This new blog looks like fun...one you might consider for the blogroll is creativity/machine - a researcher working on folksonomy and technology related creativity from a cultural studies perspective.
rank books by ratings not just number of people tagged by when searching
Blogroll: Catalogablog is a must read.
--Jonathan
lucy tartan - thanks for the tip, I'm checking it out now...
Jonathan - Catalogablog, absolutely! I think it's already on there, actually.
Like to Read? It's Genetic!
23-May-2006
Scientists have discovered that, like so many other things, the enjoyment of reading is in your DNA.
Researcher Phillip Dale says, "Children don't come into this world as clay to be molded. They do have their own interests because there is a genetic component" and "It is often more than one gene that determines the interests a child will learn toward." It's the old nature-versus-nurture controversy. School teachers all say that in their experience, children who are read to by their parents—and who see their parents reading— are much more likely to pick up a book. Like so many other DNA studies, this one was done by interviewing twins—more than 6,000 of them in this case, all of whom are between 8 and 10 years old.
The current study found that both environment and genes account for whether a child will become an avid reader and listener to books, even as a preschooler. Dale wants to reassure parents who often work hard to bring literacy to their children and feel like they have failed if the children have less interest in reading than the they had hoped they would.
He says, "Environment tends to act as the specialist. Reading to children can increase their interest in books but because of the genetic factor, they may never take to the love of books that a parent may have no matter how hard a parent tries to teach it."
Since we are all unique genetically (except for identical twins), this explains why so many families contain a bookworm, even when nobody else in the family reads.
I suggest Library clips for the blogroll.
I would love to be able to keep identical books together despite the fact that the "author" entered differs. At the very least, books with the same ISBN should be combined and counted as the same book, no matter who the author is listed as. I find that I often disagree with the title or author fields on books and will edit for spelling or accuracy, which then makes LibraryThing think I must have a completely different book. It is easy to combine my book with others if the author matches, but when it doesn't, I'm left with being the "only" owner of a book. - crystalnebula
Any plans to do some sort of linkage (maybe an export/import) with bibliographic software? Lots of us use Endnote, Procite, or Ibidem, which satisfy most needs but don't partake of the community aspect that Library Thing offers. I can't imagine anyone would want to double-enter a whole library.
Since bibliographic software takes care of much more than just books one owns, I suppose the user would have to identify everything that belonged in the upload-to-Library Thing group, otherwise library books, journal articles, and Web pages would get thrown into the mix.
I was wondering if it would be possible to add a section for users to list books they would like to read/purchase in the future. It would be very helpful to me to keep track of all the good books I'm discovering here!
This may be obvious, but I'm still trying to figure out the difference between a "work" and a "book." How can I share 22 works and 26 books with another user?
Wow. Very impressive.
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