I'm glad that Tim was able to buy a couple of new servers so that the site would work faster & more accurately.

.... Or you could just pay a few dollars and add more then 200 books. It's not much money, you know (I'm dirt-poor and I did it).

3> Ditto. $25 for a lifetime was a small price to pay (even for a poor student) to have full access, and to support, such a great service.

Or even if someone can't afford the lifetime, paid (one year) is only.... 15, I think? *And* there is a sliding scale, if you can't even afford that.

Message edited by its author, Jan 10, 2009, 5:24pm.

Yes, but there aren't many features restricted to paid members. Group flagging, large-scale combining, and tag combining are about the only thing I can think of.

It's not as if it's an exorbitant fee compared to the amount you spend on your 201st-210th books...

hahaha.... how about "collections"....

*anxiously awaits collections*

Well, I am probably in the minority on this, but I hope "collections" is a paid member only feature.

heh...I'm paid, so that's fine with me.

Honestly, I'd become a paid member to have collections (if I weren't one already.)

This is a weird thread. Posts from OP deleted. Account created in 2006 and still not a single book, but yet ostensibly asking some type of question regarding going over the 200 free account limit and a mysterious site improvement to go along with it. Weird I say.

Weird, it is! But just to chime in for the fun of it, I would like to say that I don't expect any extra privileges as a paid member. I assume I am paying because I use up more space with more books. That was my thinking anyhow, when I paid. Someone has to support whatever is behind all of this. Is it servers? wizards? the internet cloud? Who knows... Certainly I don't.

I would've paid anyway, because I LOVE this service. Even if I hadn't had over 200 books.

IIRC: The OP wanted to suggest that they should make it possible for some people who "worked" on the site to be allowed to have more than 200 books in their library.... a type of alternative membership "something" .. perk... I can't remember the exact term the OP used.

although, in theory, it might have been a good idea & some alternative economic theories are good, in this case I disagreed with him. To have LT run with efficiency & speed & have the features that it has & that we want, money is a necessary evil.... and LT isn't that much money!! Not. At. All! Especially, not in comparison to what we get in exchange for what we pay!!

oh. Looks like he took his ball and went home then. That's pretty silly.

>15
I agree that removing his posts seems kind of silly - especially since no one had even gotten heated in their disagreement with his suggestion.

I had actually marked this thread to reply to today since he had referenced one of MY posts in message 6 ... which did have bearing on his suggestions.

This could have turned into a lively discussion and branched into some interesting ideas (even if his main one didn't garner much enthusiasm)...deleting his posts kind of throws a bucket of water over it though.
Too bad...

It's interesting because the OP had about 130 books in his library the other day when I checked and now they're removed.

He did suggest in his OP that when he approached the 200 limit he would simply delete titles so he could add new ones and remain under the limit. His problem was, IIRC, that he was losing recommendations etc on the stuff he was deleting but was looking for an alternative membership structure so that he didn't have to delete books nor pay.

#17: You said what the OP said much better than I did... and with a much better recollection of what he said..

Thank you

He was also arguing that the value added from more than 200 books outweighed the value to the site from an account fee.

He wanted to know if the money from account fees was smaller than the amount from "selling" data to libraries.

What data gets sold?

Tags, reviews, automatic recommendations, related editions/translations, etc.

http://www.librarything.com/forlibraries

Ahh, look at that. Thanks infinteletters.

Also note that you have control over whether your reviews go anywhere... there's an option on your profile. :)

>17

The OP didn't delete any of their stuff, they just made their account private.

I definitely think that $25 for a LIFETIME membership is a small price to pay for being part of such a wonderful site as LibraryThing. It's become one of my favorite places on the internet. It is helping me get my books organized and giving me far more ideas for more books to read than I'll ever be able to finish in my lifetime! And there's so many great people here! ALL for just $25 for LIFE! Even my local library can't beat that! LOL

24: He had a private library before he started the thread. Well, at least, according to him.

>24
Even with a private account, the number of books you have catalogued will still be listed on your profile page. In the OP's case, it now states: "none so far"

>24 Sorry, but I beg to differ, he already had a private library the other day when I looked but it was showing 130 odd books, now it shows none. He definitely has removed them (or there is a bug in the system)

$25 is the cost of 3½ new paperback books, so I have no sympathy for him and think he is just being cheap. Tim has to make a living too. Really, $25 paid only ONCE is a great bargain for all we get here. Imagine if we had to pay $25 a year. Well, I would still do it.

If he cannot afford the price of 4 new paperbacks, then frankly he has no business buying books in the first place, let alone trying to wangle a discount on LibraryThing.

If you have a private library, it will list the number of works/books that you have listed, but not what books you have listed.

if you look at my profile, you will see a private library with a 'few' books, but not which books.

To be fair, I don't recall him saying that he would delete books to stay under the 200 book limit or that he personally had a problem with the membership fee. He thought that other people might be doing that which would lead to poorer data. He was questioning the business model not being cheap.

Of course the fact that he apparently left the site puts a different spin on things.

either he left.... or he got another account after emptying this one.

Yeah, I thought the OP brought up an interesting point: would the data on LT be better (more complete) without the 200-book limit? And if so, what other incentives for paid membership could be implemented in its place?

And I totally understand why the OP ducked out of the thread: the replies he got were, if not exactly hostile, then certainly not continuing the discussion he hoped to spark. Though why he felt the need to (apparently) leave the entire site over it is beyond me.

Yeah, he brought up an interesting point, which I've thought of before: does the 200-book limit skew things because people aren't adding their full libraries? But I think what skews things about a million times more is the people who join, catalog a few books, and never come back. They're not adding their whole library, but it's not because of the limit, and I suspect there are more of them than people who really want a complete library but won't pay the $10 or whatever. And a 200-book snapshot has got to be less skewing than a 5-book snapshot.

31: No, he did specifically say that he would delete books to stay under the 200 limit.

#35: agreed. He/she did say that... and now he has deleted books & is under the 200 book limit.

Message edited by its author, Jan 12, 2009, 12:13pm.

Yeah, he brought up an interesting point, which I've thought of before: does the 200-book limit skew things because people aren't adding their full libraries?

I don't think that the 200 book limit is an issue - if it were, then implicit in that would be the assumption that LT requires people to enter their entire library. It doesn't and many people use it in many ways, entering limited, non-complete or merged collections of books so if the 200 book limit is viewed as a problem, then so too is any form of cataloguing which is a partial collection of your books.

-> 37 I agree with you. I don't quite understand the concern with skewing the data. I'm more concerned with my own library than with the site-wide stats.

The nearest alternative I can think of to the 200 book limit would be a free trial period. If you don't pay your account would be deleted at the end of the trial period.

Frankly,trial periods put me off a bit. I like the system that is in place now.

Message edited by its author, Jan 14, 2009, 8:44pm.

#37

I think it is an issue to some people. I've seen a number of libraries with books like "10 books by ..." or "the complete X series" rather than with the proper books that user owns. In my world I would give these users an ultimatum - either pay up or remove those works they have entered to get around the 200 book limit.

with books like "10 books by ..." or "the complete X series"

I'm with you on that one andyl. I hate it, especially when they show up on an author's page. Certainly time for an ultimatum!

39 and 40, it may not be a way around the 200 limit, but a way of keeping track or saving time on past acquisitions. They might add in the individual books late, as time and need dictate.

I'm working with the 200 limit until the Christmas bills are cleared up and I can be a lifetime member! However, I don't have any of those catch phrases in my collection. The nearest I have is a box set, but not each title. I do want to add each title in the box set, but with 20 books, it's too many for right now.

#41, I've also got box-sets and I can never decide whether I want to add each book or not. I've come to the conclusion that I'll have to as I review them because I want to review each book independently but that's something for the longer term when I have a bit more time ...

(By the way, immense empathy for post-Christmas financial lull ... just off to try and find the money for new car brakes which just had to pick January to wear out ...)

For me, it's no question. A boxed set is nothing more than some books with a bit of cardboard around them. The cardboard adds nothing of bibliographic merit so I ignore it and just catalog the books. Now an omnibus is a more perplexing matter and for those I've catalog both the omnibus and its constituent works.

I catalogue individual volumes of boxed sets of books (e.g. my old set of the Narnia books) because box or not, they're separate books, but an omnibus is one book in my catalogue. It causes some problems in recommendations, because LT either looks at my omnibus and thinks I don't have the constutent books (e.g. I have an omnibus edition of Jane Austen's work, but LT recommends the individual titles), or I get the omnibus recommended when I have all the consituent volumes separately, but on the whole it's fine.

Re: omnibuses, anthologies & multi-work books

I've cataloged the omnibuses, anthologies & mw books as single volumes right now... but I'm looking at cataloging the underlying works now because... well, I can... but I'm not going to be obsessive about it..

AND I'm not going to catalog them with ISBN's attached since that will lead to someone coming along & nicely combining them with the omnibus/anthology. I'm also indicating in the title which omnibus/anthology they are in. Example: Annabel Lee (in The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe)

It's what I love about LT, that each user can set up his/her library any way that they see fit :-). Mine is setup just for me. I don't care if it is useful or not to anyone else, it's mine. I also generally don't care very much about anybody else's libraries.

I liked the picture of my one box set (Horrible Histories), so I added it. It's also faster to just add one box set than 20 titles. I want both, eventually. I don't have very many omnibuses, none in LT at this time. I don't know how I'll handle that little conundrum yet :-).

I can't wait until I have the time - and lifetime membership! - to add my collection of antique children's books (about 800, printed from 1797 to 1899) and see if anyone else on LT has a similar collection.

From a collector standpoint, I thin it's fine to catalog boxed sets - I have an individual copy of The Talisman, an individual copy of Black House and I have a numberd edition of The Talisman And Black House slipcase edition from Cemetary Dance...

I've got no problem with folks entering things that were packaged that way - the boxed set usually comes with a seperate ISBN for the entire "box." Although I do agree that folks that write in "All of So-and-So's books" are annoying.

I think there's a big difference between, say, entering a boxed set of Lord of the Rings or the Narnia books and putting in "All the Discworld books" or "All books" for an author whose works aren't connected to each other; the latter are lazy at best, violations of the TOS at worst, and crappy data either way.

lorax, what is TOS? I've taken my library to private since I am not interested in the slightest about the statistics of LT as a whole. Nor if other people find my system useful or irritating. I'm using LT as a strictly personal database, with no regard to how others do their thing. So, I can't see how anybody who classifies their own library has any affect on me or my library collections.

I have no problems with people labeling "all books through X" since I have often done my paper lists this way, starting only after the last book I had on my old, now-full paper list. I can see where it might not be useful for a person to go back and add in all of the books from earlier, just starting new and continuing on.

I don't use it on LT, only because I just start adding the new books and figure I can go back at my leisure to add in the older volumes - most often relating to series.

49>

Terms of Service. If someone is using shortcuts like "All books by X" as a way to dodge the 200-book limit, it could be argued that they're violating the terms.

Note that taking your library private doesn't mean the books won't show up; they just won't be associated with your account. So if you put "All books through X", it will still show up on author pages and in searches -- it will just be attributed to "private library", not to "dcubed1".

#49: but it doesn't mean that TPTB can't see what is in your catalog/library

and violating the TOS (whether in a private library or not) is ethically wrong.....

kinda like saying you'll play baseball with the other kids but demanding that they pitch you with the bigger softball instead of the hardball.

or saying it another stronger way.... if you are violating the TOS, whether in a private library or a public one: You. Are. Cheating.

but if that is the type of person you are, fine. nothing I can say will change that.

but I hope that you are not. I truly hope you are not.

lorax. Oh well. I can't think of anything to do other than make it private so it won't screw up those things that are, apparently, very important to other people.

I suppose if people are keeping it under 200 books, it might be a violation. But, it might just be their own record keeping. Now, I think it is better on a computerized database, like LT, for those titles to be either left out completely (like I'm doing for the time being) or added in - otherwise your own numbers are going to be incorrect. My old paper version was an entirely different matter :-). It was waay too much trouble to keep rewriting all of those books. But, I can see how others would view the situation differently and I don't have any beef with it in any case.

50: I'm not sure completely private books show in any searches.

http://www.librarything.com/work/6199322...

this is a book from my library.
apparently, I am the only LT member with this book

it shows & would show in a search

> 54

Well, I found it on the author page rather quickly.

The problem, dcubed1, is that all data is used to generate the author and work pages so you will be there as 'private user'.

I would have had no way to know it was you skittles, until you pointed it out.

Huh. Didn't know th- Oh, right. That's the only way the clothing catalog would have been noticed.

#56: and that's the way I like it!!

I know that I miss out on a lot of conversations & interactions by having my library private... and I do miss that....

but for me it a trade-off for privacy & security... so I accept that.

and my library is a bit unique in that the person who shares the largest number of books with me only shares 300 titles with me... that person has around 3800 books & I have almost 2000. (from the raw numbers data)

Sorry for how I handled this. I decided to leave LibraryThing, not because of the discussion here, but because I spent too much time on it. I shouldn't have removed my messages here, but I think the discussion has covered what I tried to initiate.

Here some clarifications:
(1) I have foolishly mislaid my login, so I created a new account just for this reply (a friend of mine pointed out that this one thread stayed alive after I left).

(2) I have enjoyed LibraryThing, and found the community friendly. Too much so, perhaps, since LibraryThing seems to be addictive.

(3) I have never claimed that LibraryThing membership was expensive. My point really was that the money LibraryThing makes from memberships is one source of income, the money made from selling data is another. I was really thinking whether there was a way for LibraryThing to encourage active members to enter their entire libraries (which would increase the quality of the overall data held by LibraryThing). It's not just a question of skew, but perhaps also having tags and ratings for the less popular books.

(4) I didn't run into problems with the 200 books myself (I had 108 book in my library before I removed them), since I only entered novels and not other kinds of books.

(5) As a vivid user of libraries, I found the expression of LibraryThing membership in terms of paperbacks rather funny. I'm sure LibraryThing membership increases spending on books; there can't be a trade-off...

(6) I find it puzzling that many posters assume that I must be a "he"...

I hope you all had a good start into the new year, and happy reading to you all. Once again, my apologies for how I handled my departure, and who knows, I might be back in a few year's time...

Gees, where's the fun in speculating wildly if the OP is going to provide answers to your questions???

I do wonder whether LT could benefit by raising the free book limit to 300 or even 500 books. I suspect that someone who owned 300 books wouldn't consider it worthwhile to pay for a lifetime membership and would just go elsewhere.

61: I have to wonder, if someone with 300 books doesn't consider LT worth $10 (one-year membership), would they consider it good enough to stay at all? $10 is nothing.

Just out of curiosity, I have seen a Public/Free listing in a Profile page and I've seen Public/Lifetime memberships, but how does it get listed for someone who does pay yearly? Does anyone actually pay yearly; it seems like an odd thing to do really.

I also stumbled on a profile the other day where the member had something like 1400 odd books and it was still listed as Public/Free, didn't know whether it was a glitch but a number of the titles and authors had odd 4 digit numbers in the name which I guess might have come from a dodgy import of data???

If someone pays yearly, it is Public/Paid. Perhaps the Public/Free you saw with 1400 books is an old membership that was paid for a year and then didn't pay this year? (They keep the books, they just can't add any more until they pay for another year)

>61, I don't know, when I found LT, I didn't even know how many books were in my library, other than that it was probably somewhat more than 200. I guesstimated around 250, actually, although it was decently higher. I got the lifetime membership immediately because the thought of entering only a large portion of the books and not all of them seemed ridiculous to me when I could afford the cost. Of course, my library has at least doubled since I joined not even two years ago, so >60's point 5 is quite valid.

Would I have paid if the limit was 500 and I only had 400 books to enter? Definitely not then, although I assume I would have eventually when my library started growing exponentially. It is possible that a limit of 300 or 500 would let people get farther in and more invested into the site before they came to the point where they had to decide whether or not to pay.

In other words, I'm not sure I have an opinion on your 'raise the limit' idea either way. Just thought I'd add my experience.

Is there a count to show how many people are paid lifetime, paid yearly, and free?

One of the things I know that exists in the charity world is donor credit. Say the banquet dinner has a $100 a plate buy in, but the volunteer works they butt off at three events, they earn the dinner and can attend. Of course when every one is pledging some money and stuffing it into the envelopes, it looks a little fishy if you don't give something too.

Perhaps that would be a way to mitigate extra books if Tim saw an economy of scale for that. Some works real hard and does a 1000 CK, he gets another 50 books? But if there is a giant imbalance of paying people, to non-paying and Tim and the crew are struggling to make a living, then I can also understand how any additional freebies would be hard to value.

I find I am much more generous with my employees when we have good cash flow. I have been a real grump since May when my industry pretty much crashed.

>66 Is there a count to show how many people are paid lifetime, paid yearly, and free?

I would be curious to see this data - with a breakdown of library size. What percentage of free account have 200 books? What percentage of paid/lifetime accounts (more than, say 3 mos old) have LESS than 200 books? What percentage of free accounts, more than 1 year old, have any activity in the last month? What percentage of paid/annual accounts "convert" to lifetime accounts (and at what timeframe?)

So many fun statistics I am curious about...

Message edited by its author, Jan 21, 2009, 12:04am.

I think that people are forgetting that this is really a paid site.

The 200 book limit is just this sites version of a trial period and I think it is very generous.

How much work you put into this site is your decision and should not require the site to up the amount of free books that you can add.

With out some short of income, this site will fail in the long run. LibraryThing for Libraries is only one part of this site revenue stream and I am willing to bet that it is this income that keeps this site afloat on a day to day basis.

Unlike other sites, LT has no advertising on it's pages. Which is one of the things that I like best.

Just my thoughts

68: I agree with you. I think $25 is very little for a lifetime membership. The 200-book cutoff is generous. It took me a couple of months to enter that many books. By that time, I realized I would use LibraryThing for a while and I paid the fee. I do some combining work for it, but that is still entertainment of some sort for me (go figure!), so I don't think I should be paid for it by getting a discount (i.e. more books).

Just my thoughts also.

k4k

#69: as you & most combiners know.... combining is an addiction... so, does that mean that Tim is a "pusher" or "dealer"? I mean, we paid for this addiction!!

;)

Message edited by its author, Jan 21, 2009, 11:34am.

#70: Oh yes, it is an addiction. Funny thing is, I have no desire to sort and organize my physical books, which would really be of some use to ME personally! I would rather sit at the computer and feed this addiction.

I think that people are forgetting that this is really a paid site.

I'm not forgetting, but the fact is that its two main competitors are free. I think the response that it's a paid site, so people should just deal with it, is simplistic at best. There are always other options, like displaying ads for non-paid accounts but allowing more than 200 books; Tim himself has raised that possibility in the past.

Maybe by some fluke LT has managed from the outset to get the ideal system that maximizes revenue. But somehow I doubt it.

>72

What "two main competitors" are you referring too?

I would guess that one would be Shelfari (spelling?) which is owned by a multi-billion dollar corporation.

Not sure who the other would be.

72, 73>

Personally I wouldn't consider Shelfari a competitor -- a poor shadow, maybe, or a competitor in a thin slice of what LT does, but something that doesn't even allow you to add books from a library basically isn't doing the same thing LT does.

>74

I would agree.

That's why I asked who they were.

I think GoodReads might be the other one.

In this on-line poll that Tim has asked us to vote in, LT (last I looked) is out in front, then Goodreads, with Shelfari way back.

LT is in the lead, again....

This blog announcement seems relevant to cross-post here ...

(21st Jan 09) http://www.librarything.com/blog/2009/01... called "LibraryThing and CIG—the deal! "

In it Tim covers a new business partnership that LT has made that also leverages the work they've done on LibraryThing for Libraries .

He's been quite open about the new income stream LT has from this partnership and on how he plans to use this extra income to be able to bring more site improvements (collections anyone?) because:

a) can buy more hardware and improve site performance and;
b) that frees up his and CD's time to focus on development rather than "spend multiple days babysitting the servers as they freak out on too-high traffic. We can solve those sorts of problems now" (from one of the blog comments).

Topical announcement in view of the thread here...

(edited to fix url)

Message edited by its author, Jan 22, 2009, 6:22am.

Whatever, we can just rest in smugness if that's the general consensus. As long as we know how great LT is, of course the world knows it too. And we wouldn't want poor people on this site anyway; they should be happy with their lower-quality free version.

And we wouldn't want poor people on this site anyway

I'm glad you brought that up. I get so tired of the argument that $25 is not a lot of money. For very many people it is. It took me almost a year to decide that a website was worth that much money. Not everyone can throw around $25. I absolutely think LT is worth every penny I've spent on it, but to just dismiss that amount of money as so minimal that people can just fork it over without a second thought is wrong.

Message edited by its author, Jan 22, 2009, 9:40am.

I think $25 is good value for money (I'm so broke right now that 50c seems important so I'm not dismissing any funds, including the 5p I extricated from the sofa to have enough money to buy an apple for lunch ...). However, I think 200 books is a really reasonable limit to have as a free account. It's not time-limited and although you can catalogue less there are hardly any features that are restricted to paid members, even programs like Early Reviewer. If I hadn't joined a couple of years back, I wouldn't be able to now and $25 would be a block but I would still be able to participate on the site in very much the way I do now. I don't quite know how much people want to get for free but the 200 limit is certainly not keeping poor people off the site.