Ownership: why does it matter? (Just curious.)

For those of you to whom it's important that LT libraries contain ONLY books that are owned – and not just your own library, but other LTers' as well, to the point where you think LT stats and suggestions and recommendations are less meaningful because people like me enter borrowed books we've read –, I am curious: why is ownership important?

I ask out of plain curiosity. I'm not trying to tell anyone how they should use LT.

My own take is that an LT entry is an association between a user and a book, that the association was important enough to the user to create (for whatever reason), and so LT metadata show connections built around those personally-important associations.

To me, ownership is just one of several possible associations. However, I know there are some who think ownership is the only one that matters, which is a position that I don't understand (except with respect to inventorying), because there are a lot of reasons why someone may not own a book that have nothing to do with whether they like it.

Again, I'm simply curious to know why you are more interested in connections based on ownership rather than on, say, having read something, or wanting-to-own. That's all.

I posted this on another thread, but portions of it are relevant to your question. (Edited to remove references to comments in original thread.)

http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=16835. Original thread.

I think there's a fundamental difference in people who like the physicality of books, and those who don't care about the book itself so much.

My husband loves to read (PhD in literature), but other than some specific books with art and/or illustrations he likes, he doesn't care about owning books. He is fine with the library and/or borrowing books from others.

Me, on the other hand . . . . I love books - the books themselves - and I will purchase them so that I have them. Books are the only thing I collect. Why? I don't know. Probably for the same reasons that people collect anything. Some women have tons of shoes. I happen to have tons of books. . . .

This is why it's important to me to have my LT library reflect my physical library. It's also why it's important to me to have a way to distinguish between books I own and books I don't own. I can't really say why it's so important to me, but it is.

Edited to fix some unknown problem with the post showing correctly.

Inventory. Knowing what I have, vs what I need to buy/borrow/steal.

It also helps me weed duplicates.

I'm not wanting to exclude things I've read, but want a way to separate them out.

One reason I'm in favor of a collections feature is that I want my main list to reflect owned books but I would love to list in a separate section of my library books I've read and want to remember as well as wishlist books. Tags could do this but I really prefer the idea of collections.

hailelib: what do you think of being able to select certain tags as "top"/"menu" tags to show at the top, like a variable menu for Tim's proposed bar thingy?

http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=15137

I feel there is a distinct difference between read and unread, I'm not so bothered by the owned concept. It becomes borderline when considering audiobooks and ebooks. Is it only owned when its on your ipod. What happens when it breaks?

reading_fox: what happens if someone borrows a book and never returns it, or worse things?

>5 infiniteletters: : Hadn't thought about that. What do others think? How would it work for most people ?

Similar to #2. I'm interested in using LT in the same way I use shelving. To hold books I own, and incidentally, to display them to anyone interested in seeing what my library holds.

I make no bones about it - I consciously consider what others will think of my library. I don't let it prevent me from purchasing something I want, but I do keep it in mind. Thus, I shelve things a certain way to make some books more visible and in some cases make purchases I might not otherwise make. Buying a box of nice looking Shakespeares at a book sale, for instance. Am I going to read every single one, or carry them around for the rest of my life? Maybe not, probably not, but I like the way they look on the shelf and every so often I'll pick something up I might otherwise not. I probably have 150+ books I haven't finished, and I'd be surprised if at least 1/3 of them fall into this category (though I've probably started and just given up or got distracted with the other 2/3s).

It's shallow, but at the same time the choices I make say a lot about me, and even more about me if you consider that I am fully aware and honest with my intentions.

LT has different uses for different people, but I don't use a lot of them. I find the suggestions I get to be fairly useless; too geared towards a small selection of the library. Example: I had a ton of comic book suggestions in my top 10 on the basis of a couple comics and some sf in my library. Then I added the aforementioned box of Shakespeares and now it's filled with theatre suggestions. I do have another 500 books that are neither comics nor theatre. Long story short - use LT however you want, I choose to use it to catalogue my actual library. (And unrelated to my personal library I use it to check out books I might like based not on suggestions but on other people's libraries.)

I do think LibraryThing should catalog what you own, unless you explicitly state in your profile that "these are books I've read."

I believe this for the simple reason that most people make the assumption that this is what everyone does - so if you differ in your use of the Thing, let people know.

#9 I absolutely agree! I do know my books make a statement about me.

What they say is "I like this stuff, and I don't give a rats' you-know-what about what anyone else thinks about it."

;)

#7 same issue. To me it is books read.

As it happens my LT catalog is all read and physically present in my house, along with the odd books I haven't cataloged yet. But at some stage I'll purge books I don't want to read again in order to make space for new ones. They'll stay on LT because they are books I'm connected to.
I've no interest in what books people have bought, for whatever reason. I have an interest in what books you've read an enjoyed particularly if you've read an enjoyed other books similar to me.

#10 - JPB, just curious as to how you make the assumption "that most people make the assumption that this is what everyone does".

Is there any way to know how the almost quarter of a million LT members use LT and what assumptions they make about it? It's clear from this thread and random posts in many other threads that a lot of people don't use LT in the way you mention and that there are a host of different ways of using it.

My underlying assumption is as jordan7hm says in #9 - "use LT however you want".

#1 - drbubbles, I like your concept of "association".

I'm in the "owned only" camp. For me, it was a simple decision, as I didn't want to spend ALL my waking hours adding books from the library I've read, books that look interesting ("wishlist"), or not-quite-book materials (like audiobooks or videos based on books). It seemed like the only reasonable dividing line was ownership.

Part of the decision was due to the impact of moving several times over the last few years -- my library has been weeded so that I only have books that I really want. And when I get rid of books, they are promptly removed from my LT account.

Admittedly, there are times when it would be very helpful to have recommendations based on some of the not-owned-but-read books (borrowed from a library or a friend). But since the suggestion feature can't seem to get beyond my large collection of Star Wars materials (prompting me for Star Trek books, which I don't really enjoy, but that's another Great Argument), I don't really use it all that much.

The suggestions feature works by assuming that most of the books in your library are books that you enjoyed and would want to read more like them. That works somewhat well when just physical books are cataloged since most people have had to cull their libraries at least once. If people are entering every book they can remember reading, whether they enjoyed it or not, that breaks this assumption.

By the way, I and a ton of other people have already answered this question of the Recommend Site Improvements : Read but not owned thread and the Site Talk : Read but not owned thread. Why don't you check those threads out?

#13 - I make the assumption this way: In every thread I read where people are NOT discussing the use of LibraryThing (LT), but instead are just referencing their libraries in some passing way, when the topic comes up, I'd say the vast majority of folks talk about their LT database containing what they own. Further, nobody seems either surprised by that, or mentions a contrary way to stock their LT database, further evidence for what I believe. Finally, it is my life experience that if people are in situations where they discover most people do things one standard way, then they generally assume that all people do things that standard way, unless stated otherwise - in other words, they make the obvious assumptive conclusion.

So, no, I have done no polls, but I believe I am safe in my conclusions.

Now, as to threads like THIS, well, these threads explicitly discuss the multilpe ways that people COULD use LT. I also fully expect that in threads like these, you'll find a spread of use of LT that does not reflect the population as a whole. Just like I think a thread asking "Do you like roller coasters" will end up with a LOT of coaster enthusiasts, while most non-enthusiasts won't even bother to visit the thread to answer 'no'.

First, the slogan says "Catalog your books online" and I take "your" literally - meaning the books which belong to you.

Second, I agree with Talbin in #2 - I also love the physicality of books - it's why I am equally happy surrounded by my own books as I am in a used bookstore.

Third, my library is over 1,600 books strong, not large compared to some LT users, but large enough and with enough unread books (over 1,000) that sometimes when browsing in a bookstore, I come across a book which seems interesting, but I cannot recall if I have purchased it. I have wound up with a few duplicates in the past. Now, with LT Mobile on my Blackberry, I have instant access to a list of all books which I own. No more buying duplicates for me.

Finally, if the stats on the Zeitgeist page are to be at all relevant and we are going to claim to be one of the largest libraries in the world, then it would necessitate actually owning the books.

I'm not saying people shouldn't list books they don't own, just that they should be distinguised from books owned. And both owned and unowned should be able to influence recommendations or not, however the user prefers.

#15 "The suggestions feature works by assuming that most of the books in your library are books that you enjoyed and would want to read more like them. That works somewhat well when just physical books are cataloged since most people have had to cull their libraries at least once. If people are entering every book they can remember reading, whether they enjoyed it or not, that breaks this assumption.
"
I disagree - two reason:
A) Suggestions is a minor (though sometimes clever) part of LT.
B) if I've read a book and enjoyed it I want that to be used as a suggestion whether or not it was subsequently returned to the library, deleted from my ipod or overwritten in my PDA.
Conversely despite having a book on my shelves that I haven't read, but was a present from my Grandma so can't purge, I wouldn't want suggestions based on it.

you are both essentially arguing the same point in #19. Because the engine assumes that the books you own are all of equal value, it puts them into the same sorter to see what they produce. IF we had a way to segment, isolate or value entries to our catalog by defining them in some meaninful way, then the data gathered for the recommendations would have merit. As it is now all books have equal weight and value, which obviously isn't an assumption that produces the results we want.

#21 Bookmarque:

That's why I'd like to see suggestions based on user ratings of the books we catalog. A 5-star book should have more of an influence on suggestions than a 3-star book.

#17 - JPB, thanks for explaining. I probably wouldn't feel safe making the same assumption based on your explanation. I tend to assume that people are less conformist and more independent - I could be wrong, but that conversation could hijack the thread so let's not pursue it!

I personally only enter into my catalogue books I own. I do so because at the moment it's useful to me. My books are in two continents with many in storage so it's very useful for me to have a catalogue of them, and to have the details in case I want to recommend a book to someone or cite it in a paper. But around 2% of my catalogue is books which have since passed out of my physical library but are significant to me and thus I retain them in my catalogue, with a tag to remind me.

Right TwoDs. That it. It weighs everything the same, thus rendering it basically useless.

Beyond the suggestions based on rating angle, which is a good one, BTW, I'd also like to narrow things to genre or tag quality. So if I'm looking for more DYSTOPIAN novels like ORYX AND CRAKE, I would ideallly like an algorhythm that took into account my rating, my tags and the classification language in the subjects column of the database. I think using those data points would produce a very tight and relevant list.

>19 reading_fox: Suggestions may seem minor to someone who joined after Talk was developed, but at one time it was a major focus of the site. There are still artifacts lying around that show how much the philosophy of things has changed since the hunger for more and more users has altered the landscape of LT. On the Suggestions sidebar:
"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.
This strongly suggests, hell, I'll just repeat it, that "LibraryThing examines what people actually own." Only it doesn't, because that's not what it gets used for anymore.

Of course we can sit here and argue about whether an actual collection is more or less representative than a reading list, but as jjwilson says, I've already posted on the other two threads about why I think ownership is important. (And I can't be the only person getting some kind of ridiculous Communist vibe from the subject line, can I?) There's also the fact that LT is set up to catalogue physical books - the available fields and of course the import options make that clear.

#25 - TIM actually founded LT as a provision to add 'marginalia' and notes to books. Its on a blog post somewhere.

yes, well spotted this feature hasn't actually arrived yet.

HE realised that in order to do so you need a catalog of what you've read in order to record this hence LT which has now grown considerably in many sideways directions.

My emphasis on read, because you can record marginalia on a book (or vapourware book) that you no longer own, but you can't for something that you'd like to own or that you do physically own but haven't read.

Indeed, from what I understand Tim uses his LT account for his intellectual library rather than his physical library.

Probably one of the reasons that those of use who use LT for our owned books won't be seeing some of the improvements we've requested/need to be happy.

Yes, he does use it for that purpose - and he also wrote the sidebar on the suggester, which is why I noted that things had changed in the last 1.5 years. Not sure how you would record the marginalia of a book you no longer own though. Since your prior-to-electronic margin notes are probably in the physical book.

Obviously this ship has sailed and LT is swamped with non-owned books. But this has been a feature request since day one. Those of us who feel strongly about ownership are clearly not willing to compromise our own catalogues to turn them into reading lists - that's not what my catalogue is for, it's to keep track of things I own and have floating around my house and my partner's house. But instead of adding a feature, we have to find something else to keep track of the things we've read. LT's competitors are not terribly attractive, a personal spreadsheet wouldn't give me the functionality I want, and I'm not going to buy another account here for it.

But Tim has also said, when the accuracy of the total books cataloged number was questioned, that he thinks that the number of not owned books is a very small percentage of the whole thing. I don't remember if he said how he could tell, but I think it was looking at the number of books tagged unowned, wishlist or something similar.

Yeah, I remember that, but I don't think it's terribly accurate. The largest library on the zeitgeist includes 10,000 wishlisted books that aren't tagged at all.

LT is set up so that each member can use the site in the way that is most useful to them, whether for cataloging, swapping, social networking, managing wishlists, etc. This is as it should be. There is no need to make a site-wide decision about issues such as ownership or read/unread books.

Personally, I view my catalog as an intellectual rather than physical bookshelf. It contains the books that are important to me whether I own them or not, whether I have read them or not. I've chosen to associate myself with them. As an academic, this makes a lot of sense: Most of the books on my dissertation bibliography came from the library, but I wouldn't imagine excluding them from my catalog because they say a great deal about me and my interests. The same goes for books I haven't read yet but would like to.

Casting a broad net makes the social networking features of LT work better, too. If my catalog helps me connect to people with similar interests, it doesn't matter whether I actually own a book or not.

I think there are two issues to separate in thinking about this kind of feature.

The presence of some "unowned" books means underlying social data is "faulty" to some degree. This only matters to the extent someone wants to rely on the social data for ownership info - I just put a mental invisible asterisk next to most of the names near the top in almost every Zeitgeist column, because a lot of those 5,000+ book libraries get that big based on fluff. It's like the list for top home run hitters - Ruth had a shorter season than Marris, Bonds was on Steriods, etc.

The other issue, though, is utility for the individual user. I admit, I'm a purist - I'd LIKE to have a catalogue of books I own. BUT, I've created a problem, because I've either sold off or given away a few of the books in my catalogue, and can't bring myself to delete the records - it was hard enough seeing the book go away. So, I have these little ghosts in my catalog. It would be nice to have a way to categorize them as no longer owned/deaccessioned/given away, or whatever. Just for my own piece of mind, even if it didn't interact with things like the Zeitgeist listings.

Regarding Tim's view, please note comments #14 & #15 in this link Recommend Site Improvements : Resolved: LibraryThing should have a "collections" feature.

TO QUOTE:

user: "Wishlist and Not-owned are two things that we really need in my opinion. The things we own are in our standard library/catalog. And in the not-owned section you can tag them as *borrowed, * from book club * from library as you please."

Tim: "But that leaves the rest in an "owned" category, and I at least don't want that. I don't want that distinction. I'm not cataloging objects, I'm cataloging my intellectual life...."

#33 - I'm glad you quoted that here, because it brings a lot of things into perspective.

Basically, it's Tim's site, and there is no conceivable reason why he should do something with it that makes it less useful to him.

What I do find surprising is how very different his purpose is from mine when I first signed up. I absolutely had in mind to catalog a physical collection.

As stated above and elsewhere, LT works with many philosophies.

It's LT's flexibility that makes it so compatible with so many different users. But this also means LT will be used in many different ways, sometimes widely differing. I hope no one feels compelled to to follow the quote by Tim above. But I also hope no one feels that all of LT should be restricted to physical books.

I think the assumptions in #10 & #17 are somewhat suspect. I say somewhat because my personal instincts are mostly in-line with it. While I won't hesitate to add a "read-but-unowned" book, I feel I need to tag it "unowned."

LT is set up so that each member can use the site in the way that is most useful to them, whether for cataloging, swapping, social networking, managing wishlists, etc. This is as it should be. There is no need to make a site-wide decision about issues such as ownership or read/unread books.

Except adding an option for users to either use or not use, to indicate owned or not owned, does not force everyone on the site to use their catalogues in the same way. Everyone else can ignore the option, but without it some of us are stuck.

exactly #36. For me combining what I own (which is all that is in my catalog at present) with what I do not would be a huge hassle if all that indicates the not owned is a flimsy little tag.

"Except adding an option for users to either use or not use, to indicate owned or not owned, does not force everyone on the site to use their catalogues in the same way. Everyone else can ignore the option, but without it some of us are stuck."

This is right - just tagging them "unowned", for example, isn't sufficiently satisfying - it would be better to have a way to segregate them from the real, true catalog.

#35 - I hope I didn't sound as though I'm adopting Tim's views and applying them to my LT library. Absolutely not. I feel like the books I own say more about me by themselves than they would if they were interspersed with ones I've borrowed or hope to own someday. I'll continue to catalog only my physical collection.

In general, an LT profile is, I guess, just another representation of ourselves that we project out into the digital world. The paramters of that representation (that is, whether it includes books owned, unowned, read, unread, etc.) are up to us each individually.

I'm mostly just surprised that I just began on an "ownership only" library without it ever occurrring to me that there were other options. I'm surprised at my own surprise I guess one could say.

36>Except adding an option for users to either use or not use, to indicate owned or not owned, does not force everyone on the site to use their catalogues in the same way. Everyone else can ignore the option, but without it some of us are stuck.

Yes, yes, yes! I've been struggling how to put it down in writing, and hopefully make sense to others, but you went ahead and did it for me. Thank you.

So, to reiterate the question, because it seems to be getting lost among all of the side issues:

WHY do you think actual ownership of books on LT is important (if, in fact, you do think that)?

#39 That post was just for my own (subconscious?) need for clarity. I didn't want to make anyone feel they need to follow Tim's philosophy or find another catalog.

I believe that the whole range of my reading (owned or unowned books) plus the books I actually own "say something about me." Even the books that I own but have not read "say something" - they say that I might have had an interest in that book at one time (or that I bought it in one of those "mystery bags" and felt the need to add everything that I could find that I own).

I own books that I hate and I have read books that I've given 5 out of 5 stars. That, of course, says something about me. Like - I make use of the library (public or private), do not like throwing books in the trash, and do not have the money to buy every book that I have rated highly. I believe the whole "wad of data" says more about me than just the books that I own.

Oh, and I still really want collections to separate these different levels of "ownership".

re: dishonest: Yes, I am dishonest - I do not include all my porn/erotica/adult fiction/whatever term to be used or applied that I own (just thinking about it . . . don't think I've ever borrowed an adult fiction book).

#41 - To answer this question most directly, I feel that ownership matters, because, when a person sees my LT library, I want them to see what they would see if they walked into my apartment and looked at my shelves. I feel like I'm being dishonest if they see anything else.

Drbubbles -

What I was trying to say above is that for me, it's important because I'd like to have a catalog that let's me understand what's going on in my library, what books and types of books I have, while also being able to exclude those that have left the library to find new homes.

It's also important to the extent anyone cares about the social information being meaningful, but, to me individually, that's less important. I think of the social info as just a collection of simple curiousities.

I hope that answers your question. It would just be useful.

Added:

One other item - I might expand my use of LT to cover borrowed books I read if I had the feature; but to add those books without it would really mess up my catalogue right now, which is 99+% pure - probably about a half dozen in the catalog now that aren't on my shelves.

>45 A_musing:

You said, "It's also important to the extent anyone cares about the social information being meaningful".

What kind of meaning do you think comes only from ownership? How is it less meaningful if someone has 'merely' read a library book, or if they want to buy it but haven't yet?

>41 drbubbles: On another thread, I said:
"First, I have just over 580 books in my library. If I added things I read but didn't own, that number would skyrocket. I don't have a couple thousand books. I don't want my catalogue to think I have a couple thousand books.

Second, the books I don't own I have either been willing to part with over the years or never bought in the first place. I would never, ever give away my favorite books. Book X wasn't worth enough to me to keep during a move, but Book Y will be with me forever. Book X came out and I was interested so I borrowed it from the library, but Book Y was by my favorite author so I purchased it right away. A friend lent me Book X but I liked it so much that when I saw it at a used book sale I had to have it myself. There is a big difference for me between owning and not owning the book. I want to be able to use LT to keep track of all my reading, including things I didn't like that much and therefore didn't keep, and that should be taken into account for recommendations.

If you go to used book sales, you will see the same books over and over again. Dozens of copies of The Bridges of Madison County, scores of copies of Bonfire of the Vanities. Doesn't it mean something that half the people who bought these have given them away?

What edition of The Crucible did I read in high school? Does it matter? But for the book I do own, it does, and I always make sure to get the best publication information available.

I just don't see how any of this is less important than a wishlist. My wishlist works fine on Amazon. But they're not very good for keeping track of everything I've read. LT would be much cleaner, but I end up using Amazon instead because at least they have the capability to rate something while not indicating that you own it."

I'll go on to say that I use my catalogue to keep track of the books that I have and where they are at the moment and how they should be organized. It would be a lot more difficult to do this if only ~a third of those books really existed.

No 46 - I heavily discount the social information as in any way meaningful, since it is based not on books owned, books read, or books desired, but on some combination of the three - if someone were to rely on the database to tell me almost anything, I'd sort of chuckle at the stat as meaningless. No one can say from this database that "Harry Potter books are owned by XX% of all LT users", all they can say is "XX% of LT users have entered Harry Potter books into their catalog".

So, the question is, what do you want the social information to mean? If you want it to mean something, then you need some reasonable level of consistency. I'm not that excited about the issue (because if we had the option, it's use would be hit or miss anyway - at the end of the day, the database isn't anything more than a curiosity), but I would find the feature highly useful in building my own catalog for my own purposes.

41> because I want a way beyond tags to distinguish what I own and what I don't I feel there is a very big and IMPORTANT distinction between the two sets of books.

Despite my response above, I will note (and expand upon that note) what I edited into my message after the fact.

I do see an very big and important distinction between books owned and read, books read but not owned, and books owned but not read (oh, and I never seem to include "wish list" in this type of message as I have only once included "wish list" books in my LT library; and I had included it because I had ordered it - it was in the mail to me). That is why I want collections to separate out the various . . . um collections.

On the other hand, all of those . .. . right won't repeat my earlier message :)

I've already said elsewhere that it's clear LT can be used in different ways and that a single approach cannot be enforced (just so it's clear I'm not interested in prescribing usage). However, I too think it's important to distinguish between these different approaches as much as possible, in practice as much as they differ in "theory".

There is valuable information in knowing which books people really do have--which ones they made an effort to obtain or keep, which ones are available on the market, to what degree, and so on.

Wishlist and "read once upon a time" items pollute this data. I've read and wish for many obscure and rare books--isn't it clear there's a world of difference between this tenuous "association" and actual possession? It doesn't mean these ought not to be entered--only kept distinctive.

>48 A_musing:

But it is consistent (just not in any of the ways you mention). It consistently demonstrates interest (loosely defined) in the book. How/why does the nature of that interest matter? If you're trying to identify other books based on your own set, how/why does it matter whether your connections to someone else are based on ownership?

>49 readafew:

Why is ownership important, though? (Aside from the inventorying aspect.)

Again, I'm not trying to tell anyone how to use LT. I'm just trying to understand why ownership matters to some people as regards the social side of LT.

Edited to correct a post number.

>51 LolaWalser: wrote, "I've read and wish for many obscure and rare books--isn't it clear there's a world of difference between this tenuous "association" and actual possession?"

Only with respect to the inventorying aspect, which only affects one's own LT collection, and which therefore doesn't interest me a whole lot.

It sounds like you use LT for purchasing research. I'm not in the book trade so I don't know what other resources are out there, but I do work with databases; and LT just doesn't seem like it has the tools one would need for that.

Let me put this another way...if ownership isn't important, why do you own a single book (assuming you do)? If it doesn't mean anything to spend the money on a book, or to keep a book, why ever do it?

I have an interest (loosely defined) in, say, a third of the books at the local book store. I haven't decided they are worth my money though.

>52 drbubbles:

I'm not sure presence in a catalog shows interest in a book. I have books in my catalog I own for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with interest (e.g., they came as part of a lot of books, they were left by someone, they were sent to me by someone selling something). I have no interest at all in a rather large portion of my books.

All it shows is that the book was cataloged, and if that is what you want data about, that is what you have.

Like I said, I discount the use of the data for much of anything. For the social aspects of the site, talk, reviews and rankings are far more interesting than the raw data.

52 > I have a feeling that if you don't understand by now those of us who care probably won't be able to help you see.

Why is ownership important, though? Because it is. All the reasons I can come up with are spread throughout the posts here and in the owned/read only threads going on.

I can go on and ask "Why are cataloging books important? "

>54 nperrin:

I have never said that ownership is unimportant in its own right, or that it is meaningless to spend money on or keep books. I wonder merely why some people think non-ownership "pollutes" LT social data.

I, too, have an interest in many books that I don't have, and probably will never buy. That doesn't mean my interest in them is useless with respect to finding other books to read or even buy.

It's not so much polluting the data and polluting the results of that data. Not all books are equal. Some are vaporware. Some are cherished. But if you put them in a list they are equal. That does not reflect reality in any way. It's needlessly confusing for those who don't want just a list of things, but want the data to DO something for them such as be able to cull dupes, shop for new books, indicate books of interest, plug gaps in collections, etc. With all books being equal, this kind of data is VERY difficult to get to and to give credit to when you do get it. Check out your own recommendations if you want to see this in action and then tell us how useful it is to you.

Besides that I feel that my library is a reflection of me moreso than my reading journal. Books that I've read once and never bothered to own say one thing and books that I have dragged from house to house say something else. When I look at someone else's library, I want it to be a kind of representation of that person. Again, it goes back to all books being equal on LT.

That's about as plain as I can make it from my POV.

Only with respect to the inventorying aspect, which only affects one's own LT collection, and which therefore doesn't interest me a whole lot.

Um, no. Frankly, I'm surprised this is proving so difficult for you to understand. A book I own, besides connoting all the data I've mentioned, is also a book I can consult, read, reread, use in any which way--it's a book I have a relationship with. (I wouldn't argue against someone "owning" the online 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, by the way, assuming they use the site and otherwise feel it's "theirs".)

Try this: if I imagine really, really, REALLY hard that I'm in a "relationship" with my favourite actor, does this then become a fact? Or do you see why I'd want to keep them on a separate wishlist? :)

>56 readafew:

Nothing you have written so far identifies any value added to LT social data by the fact of ownership, or any value not present in LT social data when a book is unowned. What do you think you get from owned-book data that you think you don't from unowned?

I mean, maybe it's just a difference of purpose. I use the LT social data to try to identify other books. The mere fact that my library looks like someone else's, or not, is as uninteresting to me as whether another LTer looks like me or not. But maybe that's what interests you. But "Because it is" doesn't say anything one way or the other.

>why do you own a single book (assuming you do)? If it doesn't mean anything to spend the money on a book, or to keep a book, why ever do it?

>Besides that I feel that my library is a reflection of me moreso than my reading journal. Books that I've read once and never bothered to own say one thing and books that I have dragged from house to house say something else. When I look at someone else's library, I want it to be a kind of representation of that person. Again, it goes back to all books being equal on LT.

But can you believe the flip-side of this, though? I believe that my reading journal tells people more about me than the books that I own. The fact that I no longer own books that I've read doesn't necessarily mean that I didn't like the book. There's a very good chance that I loved it enough to pass it on to someone else.

The book as object is very rarely important to me. As is stated in my profile, the only one that I'd treat as important would be my unabridged Rising Up And Rising Down, which, because it is so important, is not actually in my possession. It's stored at a friend's house. I still have not had a chance to read it.

Books are important for me because of the information contained within. And if the information is exceptionally touching or stunning, I'm very often finding myself wanting to tell someone else, "you've got to read this". Because of this, the books that I own are very often the ones that I'm not excited about. They're the ones that I wouldn't necessarily inflict upon someone else. Or they're the ones that I've not read and been able to form an opinion about yet.

If you're using raw data to identify other books you want to read, I'd recommend instead visiting people's reviews.

I own many books I would not recommend, and they are often ones that really looked quite fascinating until I opened them up.

drbubbles, if you don't understand why some people feel that ownership is important, then I suggest that you read this thread from the beginning again, and also those two other threads that I pointed you to. In this thread there are at least 58 messages answering your question and if you don't feel that it has been answered yet then the problem isn't in the messages but in your comprehension of them.

>If you're using raw data to identify other books you want to read, I'd recommend instead visiting people's reviews.

Other people's reviews and LibraryThing's suggestions are not mutually exclusive propositions.

I've never found LT automated suggestions useful - too many popular books. And too geared on the popular books I own, which are often not the ones that most excite me.

#63 - Yeah, this thread is beginning to bore. drbubbles asks us to justify our opinions that ownership is important, so we do. And then we hear that our justifications do not change his opinion. I didn't realize he wanted us to change his mind.

Some people see LT as a virtual reflection of their (and others') physical libraries. In this perception, including books you don't own is like saying the entire stock in the bookstore next door is also "yours".

>59 LolaWalser:

Um, yes. You may not like it, but truly, I am not interested in whether someone owns a book.

I have a personal relationship with some of my physical books, too (not all of them). But it is, as I say, personal; I don't expect anyone else to appreciate that relationship. I don't see why anyone else should care, honestly. My relationship is with my books and my library. I haven't any relationship with anyone else's books or their libraries, and I don't see that their relationships with their books, libraries, and catalogues have anything to do with mine.

On the other hand, there are books that I have read, that I love dearly, and that I don't own, in some cases because I have not found a copy whose physical substance seems to me to be worthy of its contents (e.g., cheap paper, cheap binding, poor repair, &c., &c.), and I'm not interested in owning for the sake of owning.

Would you say it is not possible to treasure a book that one doesn't own?

#66: Worst than that, he states that everything everyone has said in all these messages doesn't answer his question, but doesn't even say why. Very frustrating.

Let me ask the question in a different (I think) way: how does the way I use LT affect you?

63> The same could be asked of you. Just because I don't own a book doesn't mean that I do not feel connected to the book. Just because I own a book doesn't mean that I want anything to do with that book. I just haven't figured out a way to get rid of it yet, or even if I want to get rid of it. As noted, I have books that I've loved that I just plain don't own, and other books that I hated with a passion that I do still own.

If I want to reread a book it would actually be easier for me to get it from the library, even if I owned it. That is due to my horrible organization, of course which was created by owning many 1000s of books in limited space.

Why is "ownership" more important than anything else? I do not know. I've read all these threads and I just do not know. Yes it says something that I own two copies of a particular book, but not that I actually liked it, or wanted to own more than 2 copies. Just that I picked up more than one copy at some point.

Oh, and don't just assume that if someone has, say, 3,574 books in their collection, and note that they record books that they own - read or unread, plus books read but do not own that only 1/3rd of these books are actually owned. In my case 3,160 of those 3,574 books recorded on LT are owned by me, and 414 are not owned by me. How can you tell? Well, I've put "Owned" as a tag for those books that I own (that tag and the number or right on my profile :)).

And don't assume that because a person only records books owned, that they have read all those books. I have 1,528 books that I own but have not read yet. Why? Because I like having options. I like the fact that if I suddenly find that I like reading Robert B. Parker's books, I can just continue. Read five in a row without having to go to the library, or bookstore, or what have you. And in this particular case, this worked - over many years I've read most of Parker's books and most were owned by me for many years before I read them. I finally read the last series book that I owned and picked up the next one from the library. I haven't yet read it and will probably return it to the library unread (I do not count this book in my LT collection).

Why are those 1,528 unread but owned books more "important" than those 414 books I have read, but do not own? I haven't read them. I might never read them. I might find that I do not like the author and I will give those books away. I do not know until I read them. But I can't leave them off LT because I need to know what I own so that I do not buy duplicates. And can't leave those 414 books that I've read but do not own off LT either for the same reason. I read one Dean Koontz book several times because I couldn't remember that I had read it (yes I have reread books, but mostly as accidents :)). If I had LT at the time, that wouldn't have occurred.

Yes I just realized that I screwed up my math - There are more than 414 books I've read but do not own. oops. stupid math. :)

I think MikeBriggs is the only person consistently hitting on this topic, and maybe it belongs in a different thread, but:

Why should it be important whether or not you've actually read a book before you list it on LT?

My personal predilection is to list only books that I own, but I have no qualms with listing books I own that I've never read.

I'm sure that part of this has to do with the fact that some are anthologies or reference works; they aren't meant to be read straight through. But I do own novels that I've never read, and yet I continue to list them on LT. And I don't feel bad about that at all.

It just seems (to me) a little strange to feel this way. Unowned books are not cataloged, but unread books are. I'm not beating myself up to figure it out, but I do wonder why.

Actually, I understand his question and honestly it hasn't been answered all that well. Let me try...

Example: I checked the book Omnivore's Dilemma out of my public library. I really loved it and it had a strong effect on me. However, I usually don't buy nonfiction so I won't be buying the book. I input the book into my library.

Why does this book "pollute" everyone else's experience? I read the book. That, to me, is more important to the social data than ownership.

It's a question of how does how *I* catalog my unowned books ruin *YOUR* experience?

>63 jjwilson61:, 66

Honestly, I really am trying to understand something I don't. I'm sorry that asking for clarification on certain points that seem, to me, to emerge from statements people have made, appears to be asking to have my mind changed. Clearly, there's something basic to the ownership perspective that escapes me. Maybe it's as #67 suggests, and to be honest it wasn't until her post that anything clicked, because that's so very different from my own perception of LT.

#74 - I do think that the two sides are just applying incompatible standards. My feeling (and, I think, the latent feeling of a lot of ownership-only folks) is that to put something in your LT library that you don't own is a kind of misrepresentation. Of course you are right to point out that this presumes that everyone uses LT in the same way, and that such a presumption is unwarranted.

What I'm getting from the non-ownership-only folks is that they feel it would be a misrepresentation if they left out books that they loved but don't own, or don't own but want to read. I can understand this perspective, but my response is that it is too subjective. There is literally no end to what interests you. If I want to draw any sort of meaningful line between what belongs on my LT and what doesn't, it would be based upon my ownership of thework in question. (Having read the work might provide an alternative basis, but I eschew it because I can't remember everything I've ever read).

Basically, I think that ownership only folks are applying an objectivist standard, drbubbles et al are applying a subjectivist one.

Well the question of how does someone else's use of LT negatively affect my experience, I don't believe I ever insinuated that. The owned/unowned thing affects MY experience of LT for ME. I think having the distinction available can also improve the experience for LT users though, I don't think anyone has to use it, but enough of us WANT it I don't see what the problem is.

I'm not sure that I'd be able to disagree with that.

Morphidae - the answer for me is, it doesn't matter much, because I don't rely on the data in your library for much of anything.

The answer for anyone who wants to use the data to figure something out is, the mere act of cataloging on LT tells them nothing, so the raw data of you inputting a book is just a bit more meaningless mash. I don't know whether you input it because you own it, read it, or want to read it. The fact of your entering it tells me absolutely nothing other than that you catalogued it.

Now, if I were to want to use the data for something, I'd want to know what your cataloguing it meant. If you put in a one star ranking, I know you've read it and didn't like it. If you tag it "owned" I know that. But, as it stands, I have no idea why that book is there. So, it doesn't hurt me in the least. Neither does it help me.

Now, if there were a way to categorize owned/unowned and read/want, it would tell me a little bit more.

Is that at all useful?

The more important question for me is, why not?

And, on top of that, I would find the feature useful for my own use of my own catalogue.

I know what I mean, although I am incapable of expressing myself clearly. Fortunately for me, Jim53, MikeBriggs, polutropon, and Morphidae are here. Their posts (70, 71, 72, and 73, respectively) express very well what none of mine have. (And many thanks to them for it.)

#74 Clearly, there's something basic to the ownership perspective that escapes me.

Rather simple--but many people on LT don't really want to address the reason and skirt around it with "explanations" regarding recommedations, et al.

Ownership of books is correlated with status--so having a library of owned (or obscure books) is viewed as being more prestigious than having a library primarily composed of lists of wished-for items or books borrowed from the library. And LT certainly plays into this aspect by including stats, such as library size or obscurity rating which tacitly imply physical ownership. Same with the "how does LT's size compare to Harvard's library size" data. If there weren't such stats, the owned versus unowned debate would be much less significant.

>What I'm getting from the non-ownership-only folks is that they feel it would be a misrepresentation if they left out books that they loved but don't own, or don't own but want to read.

This is exactly right, and (speaking only for myself), it's at the root of my tendency to get a little huffy when people start throwing around such emotionally loaded terms as abuse and pollution. The library of my mind is my library, and I wouldn't put in every book I've ever had a passing thought about -- only those that mean something. (Think of the analogy to tags -- my tags mean something, even if they're different from the tags you'd use for the same book, and even if they look to you like just random words.)

I've also seen a lot of really good explanations from the owned-only folks, for why they manage their own catalogs that way. And everyone has the right to manage their own catalogs... but Jim53 was the one who asked the question I've been wanting to ask for a long time now, which is why do some people (not all, not all who are participating in this discussion) get all ruffled about someone else's catalog?

As far as social data goes, the objection really only applies if the statistic you're looking for is actually "x% of LT users own Harry Potter books". Which to me (again -- to me!) is the least interesting thing you find in LT stats. I want to know that people who feel strongly about Harry Potter also love this, hate
that, talk with each other, or with wider groups, or... a bunch of other things that don't depend at all on their physical shelves. I'll draw your attention again to Morph's Omnivore's Dilemma or DoctorRobert's whole dissertation for why.

I disagree that the mere act of cataloging tells me nothing. It tells me that it was catalogued (and if there were some kind of strict ownership policy, it would tell me that it was owned, but that's really no more meaningful unless I'm the one calculating J. K. Rowling's next royalty statement). It's what lies beyond that that's interesting to me.

And before I forget, I wanted to thank drbubbles for starting the discussion, and everyone on both sides for hashing it out (so far) as civilly as you have, since it's been a touchy subtext in a number of threads lately. This may end up being an intractable point, but then again, I'll continue cataloging my way (which currently includes 3 books I don't own, but they're all ones I would fight for) and so will everyone else.

I have a lot of books I don't physically own catalogued on LT. For one, many of them are books I have reviewed - how am I meant to record (and share) my reviews if I only enter books I physically own if they were actually library books/given to friends/lost?

And I am one of those evil people who use LT for a wishlist. One, because it has been promised for so long (before this became a 'social site' and was a cataloguing site) I thought the problem of 'polluting the data' would be taken care of and two because Amazon doesn't have all the books I want on a wishlist, so it is useless for me in that respect.

It's a question of how does how *I* catalog my unowned books ruin *YOUR* experience?

That is so not what this is about. That was the point of my whole "that ship has sailed" comment. I no longer care what anyone else on this site does because it would drive me crazy if I thought about it. But there is a feature that's really important to me and a lot of other people that would be optional, but for some reason it's become fashionable to act like making this distinction is somehow morally suspect.

Rather simple--but many people on LT don't really want to address the reason and skirt around it with "explanations" regarding recommedations sic, et al.

Well, I recall writing a post about the social differences between books that tend to get given away and books that tend to get kept, but whatever.

Why are those 1,528 unread but owned books more "important" than those 414 books I have read, but do not own?

They're not more important. They're different.

the OP has a good point. i may buy a 2nd edition to save money. i am not implying the 3rd edition is inferior.

a poor man's library is likely to contain a lot of $1 to $5 books bought online. a rich man's library will have a lot of impulse buys. in both cases, the favorite books are buried among other works.

They're not more important. They're different.

That's all there is to it. I certainly hope no one's "experience" is "ruined" by the current mixing of cabbages and kings, but this mishmash of categories reflecting different usage of LT diminishes its usefulness as a data source in some aspects (which may or may not be interesting to Tim, librarians, book publishers, sellers or the general public). However, I'm not losing any sleep over the situation: it's what it is.

#80

I'm not sure the size-of-owned-books-set as a status symbol matters to a significant number of LTers. (Some there probably are, of course.) Many people have chosen to list only a subset of their collections, specialised or selected according to some other criteria: favourites etc.

I also don't agree that "obscure" libraries are somehow more prestigious, a lot of "obscure" books on LT (I'd guess most, actually) appear so in LT's predominantly English-language, mainstream literature-oriented context.

#82

Yes, I think there ought to be a mechanism allowing one to review books one didn't list. Right now, the limitation biases reviews toward the positive end of the spectrum. :)

>80 Harry_Vincent:

I agree!

cobb

>Yes, I think there ought to be a mechanism allowing one to review books one didn't list. Right now, the limitation biases reviews toward the positive end of the spectrum. :)

Agreed, on both points!

I never said that I believe that non-owned books don't belong in LT, only that they should be distinguishable (and its not because I have a large or distinguished library). For one thing, looking at the zeitgeist for largest library bugs me every time because the largest libraries have large non-owned components. If the owned/non-owned and read/unread distinctions were in the data then there could be separate zeitgeist entries for largest physical library and most books read. And in the current system, Tim's claims about having more books cataloged than Harvard's library is a complete joke. Of course the zeitgeist is just for fun, but does that make it not important?

I suspect you're read but unowned books should be included in Suggestions but I doubt wishlist ones should (how do you know that you really will like the book unless you're read it?). And I'm not sure what should be included in most similar libraries, probably more options.

But my bottom line is that I feel that more information is better. I don't believe if given the option that everyone will update their catalogs to take advantage of them, but there are probably a lot out there that already make the distinction using read-but-unowned, library, or wishlist tags that would do the work to make the switch.

By the way, I have started adding books to my catalog that I have read at some point but don't own the book, marked unowned.

2 things.
No one else's "data" is ruining anything for me, but inconsistent and unilaterally valued data of mine detracts from the experience for me for the reasons I've stated a dozen times.

and this statement "Ownership of books is correlated with status--so having a library of owned (or obscure books) is viewed as being more prestigious than having a library primarily composed of lists of wished-for items or books borrowed from the library." is hilarious because if I felt that insecure about myself I would put 10x the books in my catalogue and say they were actually owned. Who could prove otherwise?

This is a copy of a post from another topic Tim started on whether or not LT should have a collections feature, but it sums up my feelings on why it is important to me that my catalog remains books that I own;

I understand about the "cataloging of one's intellectual life" but personally, I need a separate wish-list or collection to accurately track my intellectual life. As a bookseller, I have a very visceral relationship with my books and I think I am constitutionally incapable of including a book I don't actually own. The books I own also have a greater impact on my literary life than books I don't own but may have read. They are forever in front of me reminding me of my favorite authors and subjects. I reread them. I think about them more often, talk about them more often, and books that come my way now are always evaluated against the books already on my shelves. They have both physical and metaphysical weight. The word "library" very strongly implies my physical books to me.

Which is why I have yet to list the many ARCs and galleys that I own, have read, and are certainly part of my intellectual life as a bookseller. Because they aren't "real books" I don't list them. But I would be happy to list them as a wishlist, since I only keep the ARCs I eventually want to own as real books.

So it seems to me that there is a 'skewing' of the data going on--those of us who only list books we own, for whatever reason, are depriving LT of all the potential data on books we've read. I'm a twenty-year career bookseller and book reviewer. I have a huge repository of mental information and opinions on many books that may (or may not!) be of interest to LT members. But because ownership is a fundamental criteria for me, I have no way to share this knowledge except haphazardly, in a myriad of scattered talk topics.

#90 "if I felt that insecure about myself I would put 10x the books in my catalogue and say they were actually owned. Who could prove otherwise?"

Two things--Firstly, I used the word correlated which does imply a one-to-one relationship, or even a strong relationship. It simply implies a relationship--for some a weak one, for others stronger. So while some people, like yourself, lay claim to a weak relationship, there are certainly others who take their library size (and placement on the zeitgeist page) very, very seriously.

Secondly, this does not mean that they are adding hundreds or thousands of items to increase their library size. Rather, this leads to snippy comments insinuating other people are deliberately inflating their "true" library size with wish lists or non-books etc., followed by a statement akin to "at least I've not resorted to doing that!"

And it might sound "hilarious" but some people are that insecure--(and, for clarification, I'm not thinking about anyone in the top 50 libraries or anyone who's posted thus far).

(seemingly) two groups of LT'ers:

**Physical Books

**All books read/wanted/owned/coveted

Both groups use LT.
Both groups view LT in different ways
Both groups USE LT in different ways.

Data of both groups is combined.

Combined data is used & viewed differently.

There "may" be members of both groups who can view this situation as not a problem.

But there are members that view it as a problem.

So be it.
Nothing is going to change unless Tim decrees it.

I see more of a problem that some members are cataloging items that ARE NOT BOOKS.

I will continue to catalog my physical library... primarily so I can organize it and then decide what books I don't need due to duplication of information &/or that I no longer need/want the book. But also so that I don't duplicate purchases & so that I can actually utilize my books more effectively.

My wishlist is at PBS & consists of those books that I want & will actually purchase/acquire & not just "want to read". I will keep a separate list of books that I no longer have, but did physically own at one time. But I don't have to put those list in my LT catalog.

People: Agree to disagree.

Good Night.

#83 "I recall writing a post about the social differences between books that tend to get given away and books that tend to get kept"

I'm not how you interpreted my post--I was arguing against people who complain about the cataloguing of wish lists et al. and want a distinction made so their zeitgeist placement will be higher, not against people who have a valid reason for segregating aspects of their library.

In other words, a straw man.

#86 "I also don't agree that "obscure" libraries are somehow more prestigious, a lot of "obscure" books on LT (I'd guess most, actually) appear so in LT's predominantly English-language, mainstream literature-oriented context."

Prestigious isn't the best description--desireable might be more accurate. I've read the occasional comment about a user not wanting to add x book because it will skew the obscurity rating or how mean skews the o.r. too high, which would lead me to believe that people would rather have a lower than a higher rating--but it's probably a moot point. I don't think people really care about the number except as a bit of silly trivia. Now if there was a list of "top" obscure libraries, I can well imagine there might be some pithy comments made in talk about the data of the top users...("Of course their library is obscure, it's all in Icelandic!" etc. etc.)

If I have a tool, let's say a hammer. Some people drive nails with it. My son might want to drag the claw in the dirt to make a race track for his Matchbox cars. Is that wrong? The nature of tools is that they will be used in unexpected and unintended ways.

In general, more meta-data is good so add the checkboxes for owned and read and whatever else. It will improve, but not solve the problem because then people will use the owned box to indicate the books they got on sale or are in storage or the ones with water damage or whatever because that's what is important to them. Yes, they could use a tag, "but why, when there is this little checkbox over here and it default to just what I want."

What if this wasn't a hypothetical question? :)

Edited to add "meta-".

I don't understand the problem. While I only add books I own (unless they are tagged wishlist, and that only happens with my cookbook account), I honestly don't care what other people choose to add to their libraries. To me, librarything is a convenient way to organize my library and a fun hobby, but by no means such a serious business I could get all worked up over people who add books that are not physically theirs! I don't mean to be offensive, but...don't people have serious problems nowadays?

I am one of the "all books" crowd. However, in my LT library you can clearly distinguish what is owned and what's wishlisted, from the library, from Bookcrossing etc. Just have a look at my profile: All spelled out and links provided :-).
When looking at other people's libraries, I almost always check out their tag list and profile for indications of how they keep their library (owned vs. all books).
So ownership *is* important to me, but in a different way than it is to the "ownership" crowd. I value the library and bookcrossing books in the same way, and love my reading log and the associated reviews. Also, having these books influence my recommendations is actually positive, because my "read" books give a more accurate picture of my interests than just the "owned".
I'd be the first one to separate wish-list books and non-owned books from my library once such a feature becomes available. That's also why I have been tagging meticulously regarding the whereabouts.

for the "Only owned" people: Where do you stand on audiobooks and ebooks?

These are "real" books that have been paid for and may well be kept as treasured stories. ... If you could impose an "only owned" dictact on LT would you allow these?

If you had an audiobook on cd, tape, or on mp3 saved on some device (or an ebook saved on some device), why would that not be owned? There's nothing less physical about space on your hard drive or ipod than a box on your shelf. You still actually have these things in your possession.

Where do you stand on project gutenberg? I can download things from project gutenberg anytime, and ownership doesn't really matter, so I think I'm going to add several thousand books from there to my library. Oh wait. Someone already did that and was reprimanded because it was an inappropriate use of LT.

Or maybe I will just start "cataloguing" every movie I've ever seen, since ownership doesn't matter and people will use this LibraryThing tool for new and interesting things. More data is always better, right! Even when that data is compromised!

Like I said above, I don't care what anyone else on LT does. Because these are the things they do and comparing apples to asparagus makes a lot of the social functions less than great. The parents have decreed a free for all here, and that's fine, but some of us are constitutionally incapable of participating and want the damn checkbox we've been waiting for.

for the "Only owned" people: Where do you stand on audiobooks and ebooks?

I have both in my library and they are labeled as such (audio and ebook). The point is that I do own that particular copy and you could view or listen to it when you walk into my house. It also signifies that it is not something that I need to purchase.

More disturbing is this US v. THEM division that has come about. I certainly don't feel we should be divided, I only wish that the way I want to use LT was understood and catered for as well as it is who don't really care about the distinction.

I guess, at a certain level, I disagree with Tim's notion of 'cataloging my intellectual life.' And he is allowed to make the site what he will, of course.

But my Dad taught me something: people are forced to be honest with their deeds, but can be entirely dishonest with their desires.

Your owned books are your deeds. Your catalog of "books important to you" are your desires. I fear that if our libraries show our desire - that we will, unconciously, present the library we wish others could see.

I think I prefer showing the library I *have*. It just feels more honest.

And this is not about the money you have to purchase books. Even if you could only afford 20 in your life - that bookshelf of 20, those choices, are honest ones.

Just to be clear: I am not criticizing anyone for anything they have done with their catalogues. If that has seemed implicit, I am sorry; I have tried hard to avoid it.

Some ownershippers seem to be a bit defensive because, it seems, they have taken my asking why (other people's) ownership should matter, to be a criticism of their desire for add'l LT functionality to track various kinds of associations with a book. That is not the case. I was asking out of a strictly theoretical interest. That is why I started this thread: I wanted to keep it separate from LT functionality.

As to the US v. THEM distinction, I think it is a created one, not a real one. For example, I have a library that is owned, with a few minor exceptions of formerly owned books, but would be happy to have additional capability to add books for a wish list or to use the software to create a record of read books - I just can't do all three at once today. So, some may view me as an "only owned" person, but I'm not sure why.

As to what works statistically, it may be that the act of cataloging is sufficiently meaningful for social purposes -- it does have some underlying meaning, it's just not clear to me what. On the other hand, it does mean that there are some catalogues that are fairly significant outliers - collections of thousands of wished for books that lead their lister to show up in all sorts of sorts near the top. But this is in the nature of most internet systems - the link at the top of many google searches is often there because they are gaming the algorithm, not because they really are the most relevant link.

103> Ok, I'll add those adult fiction books then (sorry for being dishonest and not adding them before). Oh, and I did add those 1,528 books that I own but have not read.

I am sorry that I have been dishonest and recorded the books that I have read but do not own. I am, it appears, evil.

Haven't a clue what you mean by "desires" in this instance. Those dishonestly entered read books in my library are not something that I desire or not desire, they are books read.

Note: I hadn't entered those adult fiction books under this name before not to hide them but because I used a pen name to write reviews for them elsewhere and wanted to include those reviews here. So I used that penname here for an account.

I also hope I'm not being counted as owned-only. I've stated that I've started to add previously read books but tagged as such to my catalog.

The level of frustration I was feeling was more that I had spent some effort in describing my feelings on the matter, in this and other threads, and the OP put up a post that said that it didn't answer the question without saying why he thought so.

Well, no one should be counted as owned-only because no one is owned-only in any sense of trying to impose it on anyone else. I said on another thread that I had finally given in and started cataloguing library books last summer because it appeared that we would be getting a not-owned feature like, any day at that point. I too have gotten frustrated having to explain this on three different threads about a thousand times.

maybe there should be a "combine threads" feature for TALK similar to the "combine works" feature for BOOKS.

Then there wouldn't be three discussions about a single (almost) topic. ((social connection))

I have changed my mind on this. I used to be a purist who only listed books I actually own, while I maintained separate accounts with (a) a list of books I have read but do not own, and (b) books I would like to own. However I have now decided to combine them as it is so much simpler, especially for the wishlist as I can now just click on a title and add it to my LT and tag it @WISHLIST to distinguish it from other books. Similarly with books I have read, I tag them @NOT OWNED to distinguish them clearly from others. It works for me and allows me to survey my lifelong reading interests much more easily.

#106 - I think 103 was saying something similar to what I said earlier in 41: we feel dishonest if we catalog a book we don't own. That's not meant as a normative statement that you should feel dishonest as well. All we're trying to do is support our opinion - not change yours.

I believe the Us vs. Them distinction is a false - and dangerous - one to make. At this point I have only cataloged books I own because I don't feel that LT has a particularly good mechanism for dealing with non-owned books.

Although I find tags somewhat useful, I really don't like the solution of tagging non-owned and wishlist books. This is for two reasons. One is because of the daunting idea of spending the time to enter tags for all of my unowned-but-read and wishlist books, but then having to go back and re-classify them once those features are officially available from LT. I'm going to assume that there won't be an easy way to do this - it will all have to be done manually - so I'd rather wait until the features are available rather than entering them now. (Of course, like most, I'm beginning to think I may have to wait an awfully long time for those features, but as these arguments heat up, I'm hoping that Tim gets the idea that he has a lot of frustrated customers he may want to satisfy.)

The second reason is that I find that tags, as they are now, are flat. The new Tagmash feature seems to be a step in the right direction, but as long as I can only deal with one tag at a time in my own library, I don't really use tags. Once Tagmash or some other way of looking at my library in a hierarchal manner is established, I could see using tags for unowned and wishlist books - mainly because I could separate out wishlist books from books I've read and do searches on those separate lists.

Perhaps this helps to illuminate some of the more concrete reasons why someone may not enter non-owned books into their library. Again, it's not a strict Us vs. Them dichotomy - everyone has their reasons and they may not be particularly philosophical.

LT now has nearly 243 thousand members. A very very small percentage of them participate in Talk at all, and an even smaller (infinitesimal?) percentage participate in threads such as this one.

Despite the strong feelings about the "right" way to use LT, the reality is that most people are just using it however they please, and that any new features that would enable users to separate their books in any way (owned vs. nonowned, wishlist, etc.) almost certainly won't be used consistently by enough users to make any of the recommendations, etc., meaningful in the way that some would like.

Do I think there should be ways to separate books? I, for one, would love a wishlist, and I can understand arguments for other types of categories, such as non-owned, even though I probably wouldn't use them. But do I think this will make the
recommendations more helpful or the statistics more accurate? No, because nobody can (or should) make all users do everything the same way.

So, I catalog books the way that makes sense for me, I get recommendations from people whose opinions I trust, and I enjoy the new Connections features as a way to help me find people with similar interests and libraries.

>103 JPB:: "Your owned books are your deeds."

One could take this further: your read books are your deeds. To me personally, it's a more significant deed than buying a book {this is not to be construed as implying that I think all LT catalogues should be reading journals}. It involves the expenditure of time and brainpower, neither of which can ever be recovered even in part (unlike returning/reselling/trading a purchased book).

Borrowing a library book, or a friend's, is a deed, too.

There are many reasons why someone would buy, or not buy, a book. Or even own, for that matter: one can inherit books that don't interest one as books but do matter as keepsakes. I'd bet they'd still end up on the bookshelf, though, because they are books, after all.

Even among ownershippers there's variation in what ownership means: to some it's the realness of their library, to others it's the honesty of the relationship to the book. But there's more than one way to have an honest relationship to a book, and not all ownershippers have all of their books out on shelves for everyone to see. Likewise, the 'purity' (for lack of a better word, and as distinct from honesty) of ownership may vary: see post #9:

"I consciously consider what others will think of my library. I don't let it prevent me from purchasing something I want, but I do keep it in mind. Thus, I shelve things a certain way to make some books more visible and in some cases make purchases I might not otherwise make. Buying a box of nice looking Shakespeares at a book sale, for instance. Am I going to read every single one, or carry them around for the rest of my life? Maybe not, probably not, but I like the way they look on the shelf and every so often I'll pick something up I might otherwise not. ...

It's shallow, but at the same time the choices I make say a lot about me, and even more about me if you consider that I am fully aware and honest with my intentions."

There seem to be a lot of assumptions about what ownership and having-read and wishlists entail – e.g., post 103, "Your catalog of "books important to you" are your desires." {which, in my case, just ain't true} – but in fact they do mean different things to different people (for example, someone may read a library book, decide they want it, and add it to their wishlist. I personally would call that a stronger commitment to the book than that to an owned but unread book). Without knowing what those things mean to a given LTer, the rest of us cannot gauge their relationship to their books however they are catalogued. Even if two LTers share a general sense of ownership, the one cannot know the significance to the other of owning a specific book, without knowing how they acquired it. The one thing, the ONLY thing that every LT entry has in common is that it was important enough to the LTer to be entered.

N.B. I am not saying LT should be read-books-only. I am playing devil's advocate.

Edited to replace brackets used in non-touchstone fashion.

drbubbules, there you go again. Someone gave their opinion of how they feel about the subject and you post a long piece about why their feelings are wrong. Let's just accept everyone's feelings and move on.

111>
To a certain extent I was more responding to:
"And this is not about the money you have to purchase books. Even if you could only afford 20 in your life - that bookshelf of 20, those choices, are honest ones."

"you have . . ." "you could . . ." "your . . . " " . . . honest ones."

And that's how it feels to him. You know people were asked to give their honest opinions and then when they offer them they get attacked for them.

His opinion semed to be that I'm dishonest. Sorry, that's just the way I read it.

> 100 reading_fox

I submit as evidence to be considered in evaluating your question: every public library near me has books on tape. And Amazon lists The Da Vinci Code audiobook with an ISBN. (I don't know what it takes to obtain an ISBN.)

These libraries also have CDs, DVDs, magazines, newspapers, newspapers on microfische/film. Also government documents without ISBN or copyright.

Should LibraryThing do the same as the public library, in my opinion: no. Merely food for thought.

Cheers.

>116 jjwilson61:

"Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts." — Bernard Baruch

He's certainly entitled to feel that way about his own library. But he's not entitled to apply those feelings to anyone else's, unless he knows for a fact that they share them, because that is an assumption. An assumption is not an opinion, and assumptions can, in fact, be wrong.

I think everyone has been very very clear that they have no desire to force any particular way of using LT on anyone else. Have you been reading the same posts as I have?

#114 - You keep asserting that having read a book is as clear a delineation of a relationship with the book as ownership is. I don't think that your assertion is true, at least in a number of relevant contexts.

For instance, have you read the dictionary? You own it, you've used it, but have you read it? I think a person is being ridiculous if he sees a dictionary on my shelf (or on my LT) and assumes that I've read it. Such a person just doesn't understand the way that the book is used. The same is true, to a lesser extent, of magazines and anthologies. Sure, you read them, but not in anything like the way you read an ordinary work of fiction or non-fiction. You pick and choose bits. How much of the Norton Anthology of English Literature do you have to read, before you can say you have read it?

Ownership as a standard, for all of the problems that you are correct to point out, has at least one virtue: it means the same thing as applied to any book. Readership is fuzzier. With an ownership standard, at least I know we're all saying the same thing.

Edit: I want to amend that last sentence, because it sounds like I'm trying to coerce others into using LT the way I do. What I means is: "With an ownership standard, at least I know what I'm saying."

>122 jjwilson61:

Yes. I've even read #119.

I'm starting to think you don't like me, jjwilson61....

#124: Msg 119 was an admission by Mike that he read a post in a way that wasn't intended. So what's your point?

There does seem to be something about your style that rubs me the wrong way.

>123 polutropon:

Bill Bryson, in his A Walk in the Woods, raises much the same point about what counts as having walked the Appalachian Trail. Some people say walking the trail means walking all however-many-hundreds of miles it is. Bryson says he walked it in winter, he walked it in summer; he walked in the south and he walked it in the north; he walked it in warm sun and cold rain; &c., &c. He doesn't care that he only walked a fraction of its total length. As far as he's concerned, he walked the Appalachian Trail. And who is to tell him he didn't? (Not that that stops anyone.)

While I agree that ownership is pretty clear in its denotation, it's not so clear in its connotation, because an owned book can stay on the shelf for 50 years and never be looked at, and a library book can be read annually or more. (I don't mean to say that reading is necessarily a better measure of dedication to a book than ownership. But, in certain circumstances, it can be.)

My point is just that each one of us knows what we individually mean by these terms, but, we don't know what the other LTers mean by them (in terms of nuance). That being the case, the only thing that we can be sure someone else's entry into LT means is, entry into LT. How can we parse beyond that without knowing how each person relates to each of their books?

Edited to point to #123 rather than #118.

>126 drbubbles: "That being the case, the only thing that we can be sure someone else's entry into LT means is, entry into LT."

Finally! You said it! Seems to me that's the point. It doesn't really matter whether or not I agree with you, or jjwilson61, or anyone else, because each person uses their LT account differently.

123> I'm odd, I know. I have read the dictionary, and the Norton Anthology of English Literature "like a book." I don't think I have a dictionary in my LT library, but I won't keep from listing it until after I read it. That's . . . ack, will not again mention, shamefully, the huge floor-groaning number of books I own but haven't yet read which I have listed in my LT library. Oops, that isn't what you asked. "before you can say you have read it?" - If I have read sections of something, I will say I read sections of something, and not just leave it at "I've read . . .". Oh, and I read magazines/anthologies, etc. like books. Open cover - read until end cover. Again, I'm odd.

"we're all saying the same thing" - confused :)

129> I have, actually, accidently done that. Not sure if I listed that book on LT.

129 edited version> Huh, the link worked before you changed the address string.

Yes, but I wanted some context in case people weren't familiar with XKCD. Fixed now.

#128 - I'll try to explain what I meant when I wrote, "With an ownership standard, at least I know we're all saying the same thing."

Suppose, on one hand, that we have universally agreed that when a person places any book X on their LT library, they mean to affirm the following proposition: "I own book X."

Now, suppose on the other hand that we have universally agreed that when a person puts any book X on their LT library, they mean to affirm a different proposition: "I have read book X."

To my mind, the latter supposition creates problems that the former avoids, since the definition of ownership is relatively cut and dry, while what constitutes "having read" a book is relatively vague (for the reasons I pointed out in #123).

In other words, when a person asserts "I have read this magazine," I am perfectly justified in wondering whether they have read the entire thing, or only select portions of it. If they say "I own this magazine," no analogous interpretive difficulties arise.

Of course, either of the above suppositions is preferable to the one we have, in practice agreed upon. When a person puts book X on their LT, all they are apparently asserting is that "I have an association with book X." Without some indication of what constitutes this association, I find such an assertion to be completely uninformative.

#132 gets to one heart of the matter: Ownership is non-ambiguous. .

But I do want to get to a more precise concern I have with other uses of LibraryThing. One of the rules I try to live by is "be simple and plain in what you say; when you say X is true, have the most obvious definition of X in mind when you say it"

Here I am on a site that calls itself a LIBRARYthing.

When I speak to someone in the 'real world' about my own library, everyone else knows I mean exactly one thing: the books I own. Nobody thinks I mean the books I read. Nobody thinks I mean the books I used to own, but have given away. Nobody thinks I mean anything other than exactly this: The books I own.

Put another way, if I were to say to a person: "My library contains the complete poems of T.S. Elliot" and the truth is, I don't own it, but I have read it, would you say my statement of "My library contains" was the plain and simple truth, or would you say "Boy, that's an odd way to define what you mean by 'your library'?" I think some of you would do the latter. And further, if I said "Oh! To me, 'in my library' means I have read it" what percentage of you would say "Well, that's not what MOST people mean with the term library - use some other term!"? I think many of you would say that, or at least think it.

I really don't CARE how other people use LibraryThing. But my use of it will be restricted to what I think is the plainest and simplest meaning that most people ascribe to the phrase "my library" - which is the books I happen to own. I believe other uses of LibraryThing are certainly valid - but I do think other uses are taking the term "library" and using it in ways that are different from how most outside of this site would use the word.

In final analysis, I am focusing on the word LIBRARY in the site name. If it were called ListOfBooks.com, or some such, then it naturally opens up more variations of use, because we could then say "Here's my list of owned; here's my list of read; here's my wish-list" - stuff like that.

#133 - Well-said.

#106, 114: I need to make it clear that in message #103 - I was commenting on the notion of putting in books that one has spent next to little effort forming an association with. Building a "I've read this" list is not what I was referring to (but I wouldn't use the term LIBRARY for that) - and I would never assume owning a book implies it has been read: I own many books that I have not read.)

My comment about "desire" had to do with people building libraries of books they WISH they owned - but also have not read. And there, I do have a concern that we, unconciously, start putting in books that have more to do with having the list look good than being what we really want. Simply because I believe, for all humans, we are motivated by societal pressure to some degree - no matter how much we fight it. That is the 'dishonesty' I am talking about. The dishonestly formed by peer-pressure and desire to fit in, and I am as guilty of falling to that pressure and desire as much as anyone else. It's human, not 'evil' (which is a word I never used)

135> I know, I put that "evil" in myself. Sorry. It was the use of "honest" and "your books" and the like that made me stumble and gasp.

I have no desire to include books in my library on LibraryThing that I do not own and have never read. It would be nice if there was some function that allowed me to make note of a particular book, a desire to get to know a particular book better, on LibraryThing. I have included one "wish list" book in my time, and that was a book in the mail to me. I've been told that I'm to receive one of the early review books, and I still haven't added that book to my LibraryThing library (want it in my hands before I add it).

I own in my physical library many many books that I have formed almost no or little association with. I've created strong attachment and links to books that I do not own, but have read. There are books that I have read and that I own that I haven't the smallest clue, now, what that book could be about. There is literally one book that I could hold in my hand, glance at the outside and still I can't recall what the book is about (the cover looks like people flying with wings and rifles, the back describes a politics book - ok, I do not remember this book, but I know I've read it, and I know I own it).

In honor of the Simpsons movie opening tonight (after which my life will be complete), I submit the following comments on ownership from The Simpsons.

Dr. Hibbert: Now, regardless of what this thing is, it's a priceless scientific find. So our most pressing concern now is to determine who owns such a valuable skeleton, and I'd like to suggest that I do.

Mel: I'd like to hear from Lionel Hutz!

Hutz: It's a thorny legal issue all right. I'll need to refer to the case of Finders v. Keepers.

#137 - Ha! Very nice.

I may be taking that too seriously, but I think I recognize in your joke an implicit criticism of my claim that ownership is a non-vague, non-ambiguous concept. You seem to be suggesting that ownership is vague or ambiguous as a concept, because lawyers can argue endlessly about whether or not a person owns something. As a law student, I'd like to take on that claim.

I think what we have to do is separate a claim of ownership from the fact of ownership. When I claim to own something, I think we have a pretty universal agreement about what that means: it means I am claiming a right in a thing, that will be upheld in court, and that right includes a right to use the thing, and a right to transfer it to others.

The thornier question, once I have made my claim of ownership, is whether I do, in fact, own the thing. I submit that this is the part of ownership that is subject to interpretation and argument. It is at this point that we begin to ask whether such-and-such a transfer was valid, etc.

Essentially, I'm saying that there is near universal agreement as to what is meant by the word "ownership." The differences that there are arise when we question how the ownership relation intiates.

I don't want to lose the point that you made earlier that the site is called LibraryThing (and for that matter the tab for getting to your catalog is called Your Library and the commonsense definition of library is books that you own. Can drbubbles or someone else explain why they think it is surprising that that is the definition that people want to use on this site?

I don't presume to speak for drbubbles, but when I think of a library, I think of a public or university library that loans books and has other activities (story time for the children and public speakers for the adults). My owned books are just "my books" and I don't lend anymore from having lost many.

As to the domain name, I don't put particular significance to it. It's catchy and it was available at the time it was registered. Do people give a cowboy yell when they go to Yahoo!?

Others will disagree.

the commonsense definition of library is books

The word 'library' is not limited to the scope of books. Many people have movie libraries, music libraries, etc. All the dictionaries I've consulted back that up. And if memory serves, people here tend to get more riled up at the idea of other media making it's way into the system (DVD's, CD's) than of unowned books being added. Maybe people should think more carefully before wanting to cite strict definitions as evidence in their favor.

As for "dishonesty"...

Back in the day when I frequented public libraries, I would often ask the librarians for certain books, which they would look up in the computer. Occasionally it would happen that I was told the library didn't have it, but library X did.

It never once occured to me that I should call the library dishonest for having a book they didn't physically own in their system.

And for those (well-meaning) people who are saying no one is trying to tell others how to use LT, please have another look at message #10.

All this dancing around a point. If, as JPB said, you told someone that "my library contains the complete poems of T.S. Elliot" would you expect them to own those works or not?

I in no way expect LT to be limited by that, but I don't understand why people act surprised that some people may want to limit their own catalogs to owned books.

That's precisely it - could you walk into that person's house and read that book? If not, it's vaporware. The library who has to get something on loan is entirely different. To put that situation in LT terms, they would have to go get another patron who read it once and could describe it to you. How about all the movies you watched, but don't own, can you say they are in your movie library? Preposterous. They are in your head, nothing more.

I don't care how anyone uses LT, whether that be for books physically owned, or for books that have been mentioned in movies. What difference does it make to me or my library? None.

But I would never even think of telling others that if they use LT differently than I deem proper, that they should say so in their profile. Or call them dishonest. Personally, I'd feel awfuly pompous and self-righteous doing so*.

I just can't understand why, outside of OCD or a power trip, anyone would get themselves in a twist about how other people use something like LT.

*I'm not saying anyone here is pompous or self-righteous, just that that's the way I would personally feel.

No one called anyone dishonest, in this thread at least.

I don't really have an opinion on how LT should be used, which is why I haven't posted so far in this thread, but I wanted to say that I can understand why others would want it clearly stated how others are using the site. Not mandatory of course, but it's nice to explain for a number of reasons. For example so that when others view your library, or zeitgeist, they understand what the books/stats they are seeing represent. After all, you wouldn't want to strike up a conversation with someone on how they design their house to fit thousands of books if they don't actually own the books they list. Similarly you wouldn't want to strike up a conversation with someone about a particular book that you see you share, only to discover he hasn't read the book, he just received it as a gift once so it's in his house. So I say people should continue using LT however they want, but it would be great to have a more legitimized way (such as checkboxes for unowned, unread, etc.) to help clarify how we use it for zeitgeist and personal data.

I guess I'm being exceedingly dense in that, then (it wouldn't be an isolated incident). But how is one to take the meaning of message #103? That even if you could only afford 20 books in your life, *those* are the honest ones.

It seems to be saying that unowned=dishonest. Now, it may not have been intended that way, but I'm not the only person that took it as such. Perhaps it's just miscommunication.

He was asked why he thinks ownership is important and he answered that listing unowned books makes him feel dishonest. He wasn't speaking for anyone but himself (at least that's how I read it).

He used "you," not "I" or "me." To me, that's calling me dishonest for listing books I've read but don't own.

That was the 1st person, singular "you" that he was using.

Has it been proposed that the acquired and completed fields be used as the owned and read fields? They are date fields, would there be an objection to estimating the date bought or read?

That's been suggested before (actually, it's been suggested as a workaround for several things). The majority opinion seemed to be "Too much work".

A checkbox would be a simple solution, I think.

Currently, I have some books cataloged that I've read that are unowned, but they are books I owned at some point (lost, damaged, lent and never returned, etc.). I list those because they're meaningful to me. I wouldn't catalog any of the books I've lost that were unread because, to me, they're meaningless. I don't own them, and I never got around to reading them.

If there were some sort of owned/unowned distinction, I may consider listing all those books I've read but never owned (library, borrowed from a friend, etc.).

151 hexmap -

I object. Not because it's too hard, but because I don't have that data for books I got before I joined LT (for many, I don't even have estimates) and I don't keep track of when I read books, only that I do.

#133 I don't think I have ever actually said the two words "my" & "library" together. Just not my style.

I guess I can't, on a personal level, appreciate the special nature of owned books. My shelves contain a bunch of 20 cent library discards that I bought from a sale after barely a glance at the back covers. It doesn't contain some of the books I've found really engaging and thought-provoking, books that have become part of who I am and how I think about things.

This is not to say that object-oriented booklovers are wrong in listing what's on their shelves and only that. I would just like a bit of tolerance for everyone who uses LT.

154 chocolatedog

I don't think there has been intolerance. The topic of this thread is 'why does ownership matter', which people are trying to explain. And nobody has said 'you're wrong to catalog those books'. The problem those of us who so far only catalog our physically owned books have is that our needs aren't being met so far as being able to catalog other books and still keep them separate from our physical libraries.

And as happens so many times, other users are saying 'well, I wouldn't use that function, so it shouldn't be there'.

I'm some of the way with Tim's view of an 'intellectual library' (is that the correct quote?) though I'm not sure that mine counts as 'intellectual' more psychic. Pretty much all of the tangible library is there for good practical reasons. So is my wish list (all fairly well tagged) also for practical reasons as I got fed up with trying to keep LT & amazon in sync.

Then there are many hundreds, thousands of books that I have once read that are an important part of my 'psychic' library but - for one reason or another not part of my physical library. In my younger days I was an avid library user and borrowed many influential books that I would now love to have recorded somewhere (I didn't). And there are the many, many paper-backs, mostly fiction that I have given away to create a little more space. And the books that went 'the other way' when I divorced.

I added a few of these in my early days on LibraryThing and given time, energy (and memory) would add many more without a second thought. Even though they are given away they are still 'mine' in some very real sense.

Unfortunately there is no great advantage in doing this - my LT library is already sufficiently diverse that library based suggestions are effectively meaningless (though occasionally interesting).

I use LT to help me remember what I own. Because I read alot of series I forget what number I am up to.
Sometime I assume I own something and I don't or worse, I do own it and can't find it.
LT is personal, everyone uses it differently.