Private Libraries: what can and can't be seen by others

I'm thinking of revising and expanding the description of private libraries on the wiki page, and so I'm trying to compile a list of what is and isn't hidden when you make your library private. Of course, these privacy settings may change in the future (esp. if partial privacy settings are introduced via collections), but then the wiki page can always be changed again.

Here's what I've noticed about what currently happens when you set your library to private. Let me know if I'm missing anything, or if I've got something wrong.

What others do NOT see:

your library catalog or any of your books

your recommendations

your reviews

your tag and author clouds (including tag mirror)

your tag page

your statistics

on your profile:
-- your recent activity (regardless of whether you have this checked in profile settings)
-- Members with Your Books
-- Member Connections (friends, interesting libraries, LibraryThing authors, even if you have them)
-- Random Books from Your Library
-- RSS feeds
-- your groups

on Tag pages, others won't see your username in "Using the tag X" for your tags

on Author pages, others won't see your username in "Members with books by" that author (when that part of author pages comes back, presumably; it's temporarily down)

on Work pages, others won't see that you have that book; they won't see your username under "members."

your recent activity on other people's Connection News, either as a 50 most similar library, or even if they've listed you as a friend, interesting library, or on their private watch list.

What others WILL still be able to see

on your profile
-- your account type
-- your number of books
-- member since
-- your profile image, if you have one
-- if you've entered them, any favorite authors, bookstores, libraries, or other Local venues
-- anything you've written in "about me," "about my library," location, homepage, "Real Name"
-- your email address (if you've chosen to display it)

group pages: your username will still be listed publicly on the group page for any groups where you're a member (even though your groups aren't listed on your profile)

talk posts or comments you leave (obviously, otherwise what's the point of leaving them!), as well as comments left on your profile, if you have comments enabled - this works exactly the same as for public members

some information from your tags, but not identified with you:
-- your tags will be included on Work pages (under "Member tags")
-- there will still be a tag page created for all your tags (even if you're the only one using it), but it won't show your username as using those tags (so it's probably still not a good idea to use tags like "books my stupid {whatever} made me read" if you don't want others to see that, since the tag will still be publicly associated with the book)
(Perhaps some of those things should be private too, but this is the way it currently works.)

What won't work at all if you're private

blog widgets won't work or display any books

Others will also still be able to some basic things:
- request you as a friend (unless you've deactivated this)
- add you to interesting libraries
- add you to their private watch list
- invite you to a group
- leave a comment (unless you've disabled comments)

Edited: darn partial html formatting.
Edited again to try to fix bullet lists, and to add the info about group membership.

(P.S. I give up trying to make html tags work in Talk posts. Bullet lists and lists within lists should be pretty simple, you would think, right?)

(edited for typo)

I thought of another one: (added to list above)

By the way, I'm pretty sure that all the things under "what others can't see" are visible to the private member her/himself when signed in.

Another addition:

People will be able to see that some private member, somewhere, has the book. For example, if you are the only person with a particular title, it will still appear on the author's works page, with "1 private member" as the member.

Why would anyone add a private library as interesting? That seems very peculiar.

4. Thanks!

Why would anyone add a private library as interesting? That seems very peculiar. No doubt, but the option is there, if you look at a private member's profile.

Maybe it wasn't private when they added it, or it's a RL friend or family member's library. Maybe it's their own account - a second one to keep the books they don't want to share in, so putting it into interesting libraries means it's a quick click through from their profile.

If you combine or separate books, your username will show up under "Who's helped?" in the sidebar of the combine/separate works page.

7>

Not quite; it's been a longstanding complaint that, despite separating being much more time-consuming than combining, separators don't get credited for "helping" (independent of whether or not they have a private library).

(Edited for typo.)

This is a small thing, but private libraries appear on the Zeitgeist section of 3000 (or 50) largest libraries.
I like the idea of partial privacy. I'm not a very social type and have a private account, but I would like maybe a little more interaction that just groups.

The mobile version of the site will not work with a private library.

Found something else: although private members' favorites (authors, bookstores, etc.) show up on their profile pages, their user names don't show up in the list of member favorites on the author page or the local page.

On the author page, a private user, when logged-in, can see her/his own name, with "(private)" next to it, but others can't see that as far as I can tell. On the Local page, the user name isn't visible either to the private member her/himself or to anyone else.

Does switching between modes (private to public or public to private) screw up anything?

Are there any inconveniences to me if I have a private library on the weekend and a public one weekdays?

Robert

>Are there any inconveniences to me if I have a private library on the weekend and a public one weekdays?

You are probably joking. But note that LT doesn't control search engines. If Google hits us on a weekend, you're "public" on Google until the next time it hits those page.

Do people think there's anything wrong here—for example, that your "about me" should be only visible to you if you are private. (Personally, I think that's crazy, but I'm trying to be open minded.)

Note that although it's not currently visible, we reserve the right to make public reviews you make for LT Early Reviewers books.

See http://www.librarything.com/er/signup

12: I don't think switching makes much difference. I've been playing around with it. I think that sometimes if you switch from private to public, it might take a little while for you to show up in other people's "members with your books." I think there are some parts of the site that cache longer than others, so that might be why.

14: Huh. Shows what I know. I thought they would all be public, regardless of catalogue preference, if it was an ER review.

13: I see nothing wrong with that, but then I'm one of those people who can't grasp making my library private in the first place, so....

So gears grind when I make the switch? It's not just a matter of making the library and a few things on the profile disappear or reappear.

Robert

13: I think there are a few things that seem inconsistent to me at least, as I've mentioned before - both in terms of which things on the profile get affected by private status and which don't (friends hidden, but favorites visible), and about how certain information (e.g. favorites) might be visible on one part of the site (profile) but not elsewhere (like the local page, or author page) - or vice versa in the case of group memberships (visible on group page but not on profile).

But yes, "about me" and "about my library" seem like things that are obviously meant for public consumption - as do all the rest of the things controlled on the profile page itself (in edit profile settings): email, real name, location, etc. should you choose to list them. Favorite authors, bookstores, etc. are the ones I've asked about before. In the case of Local stuff, especially, it's not necessarily obvious from the start that "favoriting" them will put them on your profile, and private Local favorites (along with other Local privacy options around adding venues, etc.) have been requested since the beginning of LT local. With groups, I can - sort of - see the logic of having the name on the group page, but not on the profile (so only people who look at the group know you're a member).

I suspect my privacy preferences are somewhat idiosyncratic, but at least I'm getting a better idea of what can and can't be done.

Another thing to add to the list: if a private member adds venues to local, the user name will be listed on the venue page, and also in the helpers log. (Is there anything else logged there besides adding venues?)

14>

I think doing anything else would be completely pointless -- someone gets a book in exchange for writing a review, but then they don't actually have to make the review visible to anyone? How exactly does that help the publisher?

14/20: Why not have all reviews public for Early Reviewer books, but show "private user" instead of a private library's username?

Edit: Actually. I'd prefer that all reviews be public, with "private user" substituted for a private username. But I realize that it would be a significant change in thought (as well as the mechanism itself).

>12 Mr.Durick: If you switch between private and public you should know that the cached info from a random Google sweep of your library while it's in the public mode may stay findable on Google for as long as year. I regularly see private library data on Google, particualrly on LT mirror/international sites. It hangs around for a really, really, long time, so if you want privacy, never take your library public, even for short periods.

This issue is especially critical if you use any tags at all. Tags are a long-standing weakness in privacy protections. The more idiosyncratic your tags, the more vulnerable your privacy is.

>19 rsterling: I am puzzled that it's so hard to understand why someone would want to have a private library. True, one passes up some of the social networking interaction (at least outbound interaction to other users), but a private user, if they cared to, can see and use the incoming social networking data (recommendations, similar libraries, etc.)

Some users (and I include myself here) feel that our books are a personal, and private, part of our lives, and we don't want that much info about ourselves out there in the internet world. It's that simple. Yes, we give up some options, but apparently that's an acceptable trade-off for us. I can't figure out why that perplexes some other users as much as it does. This is a book cataloguing site with social possibilities (if one chooses) not a mandatory participation social networking site for book enthusiasts.

cobb

22: "Some users (and I include myself here) feel that our books are a personal, and private, part of our lives, and we don't want that much info about ourselves out there in the internet world."
Well said.
I'm on the fence about the trade-off. There are some features I'd like to use but can't if my library is private (particularly the mobile version), and there are other features I would use (or use more) if there were privacy options. I vascillate between keeping my library public and wanting to make it entirely private (as I've got it currently). Something in the middle would actually suit me much better.

On the Google thing, is there any way to have user-level settings about whether one's data and pages are indexed?

Any data you post publicly on the internet is potentially going to be available for as long as human civilisation lasts. Bear this in mind if you're playing with privacy settings (or anytime you post anything at all online, really).

>22 bcobb:

Well, the thinking might be, "if you don't want to share your catalog with others, then why do it on a social networking site rather than on a database limited to your computer?"

I can understand why someone might want some parts of his library to be private, but if I had any of those, I just wouldn't enter them here. I have a few I might be slightly embarrassed to have my mother quiz me about, but I figure that they're pretty lost in the volume of everything else, and I still want them to be counted as part of my collection. If I didn't want to interact with others via books, I would have just made a homemade database or purchased one of the programs made for book inventories. I considered that on and off for years, but never did anything until I found LT and could easily share the information with others.

>On the Google thing, is there any way to have user-level settings about whether one's data and pages are indexed?

In theory, we could have this feature. But not everyone pays attention to it. And even Google will index pages that you ask it not to index, if they're important enough.

>Any data you post publicly on the internet is potentially going to be available for as long as human civilisation lasts. Bear this in mind if you're playing with privacy settings (or anytime you post anything at all online, really).

Human civilization? Surely the aliens who come upon our dead civilization--or who kill it--will take a snapshot too.

22, 26: the great thing about LT is that there is so much more available on LT, even for a private user, than you could ever get from an off-line database: the quality of the catalog, the links to cataloging sources, but then also the ability to explore books by the same author, recommendations, the tagging feature, links to "buy,borrow,swap," and the list goes on and on - and all at one site. And the privacy feature, as bcobb points out, doesn't mean that you don't interact: it means you don't share the contents of your catalog. You can still see incoming information on other peoples' catalogs, but also you can still join groups, participate in talk, friend people, etc.

Found another:
There is no "clouds" section with a link to the author and tag clouds in the main profile for private accounts (either for the private user or for others), although there is still a clouds link in the top navigation bar.

22>

My tactic is anonymity -- I don't give any information that could be used to link my library with my offline identity. Someone who already knows me well could probably identify me from my library, but nobody who doesn't know me well could do so, and nobody could find my library just by knowing me.

That said, I do understand why people would want a private library. And I completely understand people who have totally private libraries -- they aren't active on Talk, etc. Where I have a problem is with what I see as taking from the community without giving back -- private users who are more than happy to browse other people's libraries, get recommendations, etc, but not willing to give back to the community by letting other people with similar interests browse their libraries. It's the one-sided social interaction that bothers me, not people who choose not to participate in any of the social aspects.

Edited to close tag.

And another tidbit:
Clicking on the Connection News link from a private member's profile gives you "no results" (as it should), but while it might not be immediately obvious, you're actually taken to your Connection News page. (I guess this oddity/confusion isn't particular to private libraries, actually, since it is equally confusing for public libraries too.)

30, well, I have to say that's their prerogative (the one-sided interaction). LT was set up with a private option, which works this way.
People might go private for a wide range of reasons, short-term or long-term, and that's up to them. I went private recently both to test it out and because I was -- no doubt a bit paranoically :) -- feeling a bit stalked. I actually don't actively conceal my own identity here, and don't wish or need to, because my library is largely professional/academic, and I wouldn't catalog books publicly that I wasn't comfortable displaying as a part of my professional persona. Yet I'm still a bit leary of full-out publicity, feeds, recent activity displays etc. as I like to control how information about me is released; and I'd especially like to have private sections of my library so that I can catalog any books I might leave out currently. Thus the need, in my mind, for finer-grained privacy options, without which I'm always sometimes tempted towards full privacy.

>30 lorax: I do see your point about the seeming one-sidedness of private users not "contributing" to the social network. However, I want to point out that we actually do contribute our data which is included in the site-wide stats on the work, book, recommendation, series levels, etc. What you can't see is which private user has which books in their collection. Perhaps you should mentally just amalgamate all private users into one pseudo-identity (with a lot of books!).

Personally, I rarely look at anyone else's catalogue and do not participate in discussions about books, or read reviews. My social networking here is restricted to participation in the various groups having to do with the site itself. I do care about that and try to pull my weight in this area.

The reason I use (and enjoy) LT is for help cataloguing my books, and from time to time, hunting for other books by the same authors, or on similar topics. I really have no interest in who else might have a book and would be quite content if that info wasn't available. I'm only interested in the books, not on whose shelf they reside!

The other odd reason I enjoy hanging out here is that I love puzzling out the meaning of the casual little bursts of computer tech-talk that erupt in these threads. I can usually figure out the rough meaning from the context, but the precise meaning is something that takes me some effort to adduce. It's like peering through a narrow window on to a mysterious world.

Plus, I have to say I relish the particular style of interaction here in these site-focused groups. This is set and maintained by LT staff and adopted by the community who participate. I find it's a rare breath of invigorating fresh air on the otherwise often simultaneously intense and vapid internet world.

cobb

I've got a "private" library:

but me, not contribute?? right.

This is what I wrote awhile back when there was a discussion about marking individual books private:

--------------------

I was raised in a home where my reading was not restricted at all.... no censorship. My first job was at the local public library, where all books were available regardless of content (but at that time were on a "restricted access" shelf).

As a result, my personal library has a range of books from theology & education to "bodice rippers" & classical literature to psychology & medical manuals.

Because many people misconstrue "owning" a book as "agreeing with the content" or "having the disease" or "stereotyping the reader", I don't want the people I work with to see some of the books I have in medicine or psychology. I have some books because of research, personal interest, and family reference/research. I have some books because of some of the people I come into contact with in my work & due to confidentiality reasons will not disclose.

An example would be if I had books on suicide & depression. I do not plan on committing suicide, nor do I know of anyone planning suicide (that must be reported) but I do need to actively recognize the precursors to suicide. I need to know to redirect behaviors, attitudes & beliefs that might lead someone in that direction, not in a medical way, but in a caring way that helps raise that person's self esteem. (& if necessary, to get appropriate help) I also don't want those same people to know that I have books on suicide because they don't need to think that I am always on the look for symptoms of suicide or depression. (I'm not) That will drive a person to withdraw further away from people who could help them (not necessarily me, but others, too).

On the other hand, I might want my books on religion & theology to be available for others to see. I still run some risk there, since some might see that a book from the publishing arm of Focus on the Family to be an endorsement of that organization. Or books on Judaism & Islam to be a betrayal of my Christian faith. They are not. Those books are a reflection of my curiosity & quest for understanding the faith of people that I care about. They are also part of a quest for a greater understanding of the Christian faith & its roots.

**** (& others):
The desire for private settings is not a desire to "hide" our books from people who understand the many diverse reasons that people own or read books. The desire for private settings (for me) comes from the knowledge that there are many people in this world who do not look or think deeply. They are people who look quickly & judge others even more quickly. To put it simply, they "judge a book by its cover." For me, to quickly look at my library might be deceiving. To judge me by the ownership of a few books, or even one book, would be extremely unjust. But there are people who do just that everyday. You may be able to cope with people who judge you wrongly, but there are many people who can't do that. They have families, friends, coworkers, employers, community members who will look at their books & think them a much better or much worse person because they list a book in their library. Owning a book on AIDS doesn't mean that person has AIDS, but there are people who would believe that & someone could lose their job, family & friends because of it.... and yes, it does happen.

****, I hope this helps you to understand the other side of the "private books" issue that you may not have considered. While I understand your side (& truly wish that I could join you in it), I hope you can also understand my side.

Thank you.

---------------------------
back to the current post:
There are many different reasons for having a private library & anyone who has a private library should not have to justify that desire to keep that information away from others who don't need to know it.

Why does anyone need to know what books I list on LT or why? I have less that 40 "singletons" & those books are available on LT, but the "owner" is listed as "private user"... why do you need more information than that?? Considering how many books I have on LT, that's not a lot of singletons... so almost all of my books are also owned by others. Who cares?

If I want to discuss Shakespeare's Hamlet, do I have to list a copy on LT? Do you need to know if I have a copy of it? Who gives a rat's tush? I don't!

If you want to see my porn collection, you are out of luck... I don't have one. Unless you count my medical books as porn... and if you do, I definitely don't want you looking at my books!!

When I was in elementary school, the mother of one of my classmates wanted the Time-Life Book of World Religions banned from the school library because it had information on non-Christian religions. Even then, I knew that her request/demand was stupid & ridiculous & petty... and a few other things. I pitied my classmate for having a parent like that.... still do, in fact.

So, my library is private & will stay that way. I don't know why others have their libraries private & whatever that reason is, I'm fine with it.

But just because you don't agree or understand why someone chooses something different from you, doesn't mean that they have to change or should.

Yeah, you hit a button.

*hugs skittles* That is a wonderful, insightful explanation.

And as I was reading that, I realized that I would very likely make my catalogue private if, say, my mom or uncle were to use this website (and then I panicked 'cause, while mom can't use a computer so I don't have to worry about her, said uncle can....). Child abuse and sexual abuse books play a big role in my catalogue and I would hate to see what resulted from them finding that out.

34>

I do understand your point, and it's primarily a stylistic one -- I find that I get more interesting recommendations from browsing catalogs similar to mine than from "recommendations" based either on a single book or on my whole catalog. I also like browsing on non-searchable axes -- I'm participating in the LC Challenge, and you can't search on LC numbers, so the only way to find interesting-looking books in categories I don't have is to browse other people's catalogs.

cobb,
I agree, I had a private account for that reason (but am trying a public one for now). It's like coming home and shutting the door. (But I am enjoying looking at other libraries and wanted to try and see how it felt to go public. Would I feel the need to make sure my site was "perfect?" Would the really stupid book I've read bother me? Only time will tell.

30 lorax
That is exactly why I made my library public. And I asked for imput about going public and got some "comforting" answers.

35 skittles
I am naive in ways sometimes I don't even know about. I started with a private library because I am generally uncomfortable with social web sites. I changed to a public one because I enjoy "playing" with books and there are some amazing people on LT. You make some incredibly valid points that never in a million years would have occurred to me. I also see how our professions contribute to our different ways of handling our libraries. You are obviously in a profession where client information must be protected. I work in a library and am 10 weeks away from becoming a card carrying MLS librarian.
Though I guess for me it boils down to the fact that if the people here weren't as intelligent, well read, well spoken as there are I would have stayed private

I'm curious if reviews need to be private. Doesn't comments fulfill that need for private users? Not meaning to be jumped on by private users, but being able to publicly post a review is a powerful feature, not just for Early Reviews, even if you don't want your name associated with it.

I just noticed something else that is either a bug or a result of private status: is it possible that member's with private libraries can't see any of their own reviews on their review page? I just looked at my review page, and although I can see the right-hand column with other people's reviews of my books, there is nothing in the left-hand column, even though I do have a review.

I'm not sure if that's intentional, but it does seem that private status affects some of the functionality of one's library, even for the member her/himself.

Having a book about something hardly means that you agree with the author. I certainly read a lot of books that I disagree with, sometimes vigorously.

A book by Hitler doesn't make me a National Socialist, nor does a book by Chairman Mao or by Lenin make me a Communist. My opinions do affect my ratings. Fascist and communist books get 1/2 ratings. Books can be important without being well written or in any sense correct.

I will stick with a public library. I do occasionally remove a book from my LT library, and I do have books from the public library or from the Gutenberg Project in my LT library.

#43, Yes, I agree with you. Owning a book does not mean you agree with the opinions stated within its pages....

But not everyone thinks that way.

A few people have noted that they have books on child abuse or rape or, in my case, suicide & depression. and some people have said that if their family would look at their library here, they would either remove those books or make their library private... or those specific books if books were allowed to be in a private collection.

Please realize that although most of us here at LT are fairly open-minded individuals... the world is not generally open-minded. They judge you by the clothes you wear & the words you speak... and unfortunately, by the books you read/own.

Around two years ago, a community member found out I belong to an GLBT group about 100 miles away. I joined that group for fellowship & because I had friends in that group.... and that person assumed that I was GLBT and innocently (??) mentioned it around to other mutual acquaintances. In this part of the US (small town/rural), that could cost me my job. They'd find another reason for letting me go or for not hiring me. And although in many ways, I consider it a compliment, by spreading that misinformation, she has damaged my reputation.

I have stated it before. There are too many narrow minded people in this world who judge people without knowing them... very superficially & without good reason. I've dealt with too many of them... and too many of them are in positions of power or authority.

And for someone to state, "Having a book about something hardly means that you agree with the author. I certainly read a lot of books that I disagree with, sometimes vigorously. A book by Hitler doesn't make me a National Socialist, nor does a book by Chairman Mao or by Lenin make me a Communist. My opinions do affect my ratings." is much too arrogant for my tastes.

You are entitled to your opinion of YOUR books, but you cannot control the opinion of others... or for those whose opinion of their personal safety & reputation differs from yours.

My suggestion for those who question my reasoning need to read more about societies, fictional or otherwise, who censor opinions of those they disagree with.... think the very dated, but true 1984 & Fahrenheit 451.

.. and talk to a few of the people here who either have private libraries or who haven't posted all of their books because of who might see them.

and talk with a few people in your community who have dealt with discrimination in one form or another... talk with some of the real life librarians & bookstore people about things that have happened to them & others because of the books they read or own.

The world is not hearts & flowers. It is full of stupid, uneducated, uninformed, bigoted, and easily mislead human beings. I will not trust my safety & that of my family and friends to a society that still thinks that their opinion is the only correct one.

Yeah, I'm intolerant of intolerance.

Ironic, isn't it.

*has urge to hug skittles*

I completely understand some people's need and reasoning to keep their library private, even if it's just simply not wanting other people to be nosing around.

But the thing that gets me is thinking that prospective employers or people in that person's community might make snap-judgements if they saw the person's library... I understand that it probably happens, it just *sucks*. And makes me realize how much I take for granted, being able to be so open, and knowing that my employers are in fact *glad* that I have researched things like child abuse and stuff. (Yeah, I actually know that for a fact)

41:

I second your wondering and your hope not to be jumped on.

There are things other than books as such which I'm not too interested in sharing (I feel that my sort-by-location system and various dates are my business), but I wouldn't mind others' knowing that I'd read books A, B and C because I wrote reviews about them. And of course I'm conceited enough to believe I might have something useful to say about them. (At present I have no reviews in my catalogue because it seems pointless.)

Of course I could get myself another account if I were really motivated, but then I'd have to either commit to it enough to make it worth paying for, or go away and ponder whether any short opinion I'd ever have the impulse to write was worth spending one of two hundred entries on, which would be a lot of mental effort for something I hadn't committed to to the degree that I wanted to pay for it, etc. Plus I don't have the kind of mind that can consistently handle such all-over-the-place-ness of closely related data.

In my private (hee hee) wonderings about this I've been comparing the publicness of reviews (which I can't have - meaning the publicness, not the reviews) with the publicness of favourite authors (which I can have, and would have if I chose to list any authors). Favourites and reviews seem to be the same kind of feature, and I don't really understand why one of them is automatically public and the other isn't.

If it were ever decided to make reviews either automatically public for all members or (as I would favour) optionally public for private members, we'd also have to consider the publicness of star rating. I think logically the star rating of a book in a private library would only become public when the owner of the library reviewed that book, and would become private again if the review was deleted.

But I don't know if this is possible, and in the event that it's possible but not easy, if there would be enough people in favour to make the effort worthwhile.

ETA:

21:

I hadn't thought about substituting "private member" with the username attached to reviews, but I suspect there would be both technical and 'social' arguments against it.

Another matter: I'm also curious about private member's member recommendations. I'm not going to test that, because it is my understanding that I wouldn't be able to make it vanish again afterwards. I assume they're public, but since reviews aren't public either I'm not sure I really grasp the logic behind these things.

47>

I really don't see why people are surprised that reviews in a private library are private.

Reviews are an attribute of YOUR book in YOUR catalog. You get to them via the edit book page and everything. It would be mystifying if one field were public and the rest were private.

Member recommendations aren't linked to your catalog -- they're work-level, and you can make a recommendation on a book not in your catalog -- so it would make sense for them to be public, just as a private member can make public Talk posts or leave public comments on another users' profile.

I think all anyone means is that for Early Reviewers especially, private reviews are pointless and go against the intent of the program as it pertains to LT. In general I think private reviews do the community a disservice in the sense that it's non-contributary (I think I just made up that word). They reap, but they do not sow in the review field.

49>

Absolutely. Letting people with private libraries get ER books, in the current system where reviews are private, makes a mockery of the program, and people have been saying this basically since the beginning but haven't gotten any response, either excluding private libraries from participating or making their reviews (if only of ER books) be public. It's really disappointing to think that I may be losing out on ER books to someone who doesn't even make their reviews available to the LT community.

That's a little harsh. It's not as if someone who wants the rest of their library to be private can choose to make those reviews public. It's just not an option, and we'd need finer-grained privacy options to do that (or the option perhaps to link to another account -- {COUGH} or collection.... {/COUGH} -- for ER stuff only, one that would be public). Anyway, as Tim said upthread, they reserve the right to make ER reviews of private members public* (though perhaps they should state that somewhere else, in the terms, etc., so that more people know about it).

ETA: *I guess that falls under the clause in the ER terms where we grant LT and the publishers etc. non-exclusive rights to publish or otherwise use our reviews.

I really should get around to adding all this info to the Wiki page, since that was my original plan in starting this thread. I'm still learning all the things that work and don't work with a private account. (But I can't wait until Collections comes on, and especially until, sometime after that, there are privacy options for collections, rather than this almost all-or-nothing system.)

One more thing to add to the list: private members' profiles aren't included in the random member roulette.

48:

I see your point. What I put in the Edit Book form is about my books. OTOH, I'm perfectly capable of polluting the work pages of rarely-catalogued books with tags like "for beginners", "better than the first one", or "I wonder what he'd been drinking when he wrote this", and of in- or decreasing their star rating average, so it's not as though there's an airtight seal between my Edit Book form and the rest of LT, opinion-voicing-wise.

In terms of structure, reviews can't be compared to either favourite authors or member recommendations. Or Common Knowledge columns in the catalogue, for that matter. But in terms of function, I don't think reviews are anything like comments or summary, either.

you can make a recommendation on a book not in your catalog

I hadn't realised that, and it makes it a lot more interesting, so thanks for the information.

52> Has that changed overnight? I got at least one private member when I tickled the random member key last night.

Robert

Yes, Tim posted that he'd changed it - see post 48: http://www.librarything.com/topic/51641#929094

Thank you, I just saw that.

Robert

I also have a double chin.

I just wrote some reviews and discovered that I can not even get at them myself (by clicking "see reviews" on my profile page). I only see other people's reviews of books in my library.

What does work: a catalogue search on reviews for a question mark.

ETA: Okay, so this was mentioned in message #42.

... and although nobody except myself can see a review written by me, everyone can see the number of reviews on the work page go up when I write one. In the most anticlimactic case it says there's 1 review, and when you click on the 1 there's nothing there.

Surely this is not the same kind of thing as being told there are 4 members who have the book and, when clicking on the 4, seeing three names and "1 private user". What is the good of knowing that some private user has written a review you can't see?

I maintain that reviews in the current system inhabit a grey twilight dodgy inconsistent limbo between the public and the private.

Another possible odd effect of private libraries: they can (I suspect) throw off the count of how many members have books by an author. Consider Hugh A. Shamberger, who has 21 works in the system, with one copy of each. And apparently 21 members. But each copy is in a private library. Somehow I feel it's likely that this is the same private library, although there's no way to tell.

Message 59, the sequel: and then there were none. That is, no more invisible reviews on work pages. (They didn't become visible, they're gone.)

Perhaps the person who (very sneakily) fixed this could also take a look at the numbers in the "shared" column? Mine are a bit whacky where I edited a review (for some books, the total number of reviews seems to go up with every edit).

UPDATE: Some of my invisible reviews are now counted on the work pages again. Perhaps my earlier assumption about a fix was mistaken and the system is being generally confused on private-review-related matters. In either case I stand by my prior assertion about limbo.