Realia, or things that are not books

The thread on inputting periodicals got side-tracked onto the subject of cataloging non-media, or what's called "realia" (regular stuff), so I'm starting a new thread.

Some people object to users cataloging things-that-are-not-books, but in fact the Rulebook (Anglo American Cataloging Rules, or AACR) has a chapter on just this topic, and the Library of Congress published a separate set of subject headings (a thesaurus, in library-speak) for graphic materials.

BTW, part I of the AACR2 covers descriptive cataloging of many things besides books, including maps, manuscripts, music, recordings of various sorts, electronic resources, microforms (microfilms), and graphics.

This is the scope of the chapter on 3D & realia:
"The rules in this chapter cover the description of three-dimensional objects of all kinds (other than those covered in previous chapters) including models, dioramas, games (including puzzle and simulations), braille cassettes, sculptures and other three-dimensional art works, exhibits, machines, and clothing. They also cover the description of naturally occurring objects, including microscope specimens . . . and other specimens mounted for viewing."

Most people are familiar with public and perhaps college libraries, but there is a world of other libraries (librarians call them special libraries). Most of them are not lending libraries. A medical or scientific library is going to have collections of all kinds of things for students, physicians, or scientists. A thesis for an MFA is likely to include art projects as well as words. And so on.

Personally, I don't see why one can't catalog anything one wants, but I can also see how the servers might get overloaded if the LT gets overenthusiastic.

Personally, I don't see why one can't catalog anything one wants, but I can also see how the servers might get overloaded if the LT gets overenthusiastic.;

One can, but would one want to? There's a reason that I don't use LT to catalogue non-books (specifically, music and films in various and sundry media) and that is that the data fields aren't set up for it.

I know that some people do use LT for that purpose, but for me it simply doesn't do the job right.

Wouldn't mind someone inventing a MusicThing or a FilmThing, though!

People really do use LibraryThing for whatever they want...including clothing.

http://www.librarything.com/work/3692248

(And there's more where that came from...)

I remember a thread discussing someone who cataloged their perfume collection and Abby talked about a game collection on here a couple years ago at ReaderCon.

I've been tempted to catalog movies but have made myself stick to books. I also wouldn't mind if someone invented a FilmThing type site.

Oh, Tim....

2>

The point of the discussions, at least those I've been involved in, wasn't CDs or DVDs or media of any sort -- it was RANDOM CRAP. Perfumes (which has been done.) Action figures. Collectible plates. Do we really want all this sort of stuff on LT?

I have noticed that the examples of the most out there things are in private libraries. The perfumes (based on the tags I saw it looked like the user was cataloging perfumes not just the bottles), Party Dress, all are in private libraries. Do these people even know the rest of us can see these items? Maybe they feel freer to enter odd things since they have private libraries.

I'm in favor of tolerating eccentricity so long as it doesn't interfere with the function of the site. So, I guess the question would be, are there enough libraries of realia to mess things up?

edited for typos (grumble, mutter)

At the bottom of each page is a link "About"

If you click on it, it will take you to the "About LibraryThing" page.

The first heading reads;

What is LibraryThing?

LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily....

The fifth heading reads;

What else does LibraryThing do?

LibraryThing is a full-powered cataloging application, searching the Library of Congress, all five national Amazon sites, and more than 80 world libraries. You can edit your information, search and sort it, "tag" books with your own subjects, or use the Library of Congress and Dewey systems to organize your collection.

If you want it, LibraryThing is also an amazing social space, often described as "MySpace for books" or "Facebook for books." You can check out other people's libraries, see who has the most similar library to yours, swap reading suggestions and so forth. LibraryThing also makes book recommendations based on the collective intelligence of the other libraries.

I don't see anywhere on this page where it states that LibraryThing can also be used to catalog anything that you want to catalog.

I understand that LibraryThing can be used to catalog anything, but it's meant to be a book cataloging site. not perfume, clothing, real estate or anything else that one can think of.

Just my thoughts.

Edited to fix closing tag

The only realia I've got (no- take that back, the only realia I have catalogued) is this:

http://www.librarything.com/work/2483324/book/14994398

Definitely not a book but it does have an ISBN

I've just seen that my pack of Baghdad Blackjack has as well - maybe that can go alongside.

>10 abbottthomas:
If it has an ISBN and it's something I keep on my shelves, it goes into LT. So far that only includes one DVD, two board games, and a video game manual so massive that it came in a three ring binder.

I think the "things that are not books" in the subject line gravely distorts the actual point of the thread.

It's not about CDs, or DVDs, or software manuals, or anything that might be vaguely book-related if you look at it crosswise -- it's about perfumes, and clothes, and all manner of stuff. The question is not "should it be OK to catalog DVDs and the occasional manual in addition to books", but "should it be OK for people who for all we know have never read a book in their lives to use LT to catalog their collectible plates?"

So, lots of libraries have stuff in their catalogs that is not books.

The pride of my alma mater's library collection, for example, was a life-sized inflatable Spiro T. Agnew doll. But even smaller libraries often have non-media stuff. My middle school library had everything from microscope slides to costume pieces that teachers could check out.

(This is, after all, LibraryThing, not BookThing...)

My feeling is that if it's part of a collection that's mostly media, and is used primarily as an information/reference/learning source rather than for whatever it was originally created for, it fits in perfectly well in a library. I don't think I currently have any realia cataloged (though I've got a fair amount of ephemera) but I've got some maps, posters, vintage photos and prints, natural history collections, antique textiles and clothing, and LPs that I think of as library materials and might very well add - whenever I get finished with the more conventional stuff.

(And I can't speak for the game and perfume collections - though the idea of a reference library of scents strikes me as *deeply awesome* - but the dresses linked above appear to be a collection of vintage stuff, not somebody's everyday wardrobe, and could very well be part of a reference collection.)

So, no, LT's database fields aren't specifically designed for that sort of thing, but for much of it, they'll work just as well as they do for a tiny-print-run book with no ISBN or catalog sources, which I have never seen people object to.

A vintage couture dress, for example, would have a title, a designer (author), a company (publisher), a year, and a city, and there are systems for giving it a catalog number. Same for a game or perfume. And that's more than I've got for a lot of my pre-ISBN novels. (The person with the dresses doesn't appear to have bothered with all that, but then a lot of one-owner manual entries for books don't, either.)

The border between a library and an archive and a museum can be fuzzy...

All right, fine.

I lose. LibraryThing is now RandomCrapThing; clearly nobody else is bothered by the idea of doing a search for a book title and having a half-dozen perfumes come up. (Which really happened.) I personally wish these would be considered violations of the TOS and treated as such, but that's not going to happen. Too bad; I liked it here.

...well, that's the conflict against cataloging vs. social coming up again, isn't it? I personally feel that if it's part of my library, I can catalog it, however I think it should be catalogued, and that's the primary purpose of the site. But that's always going to conflict with the convenience of other people using the site for other things.

...Wouldn't it be nice if we could mark certain collections so they wouldn't come up in other people's search results or social stuff? Man, I wish that were possible. Maybe we should suggest it to Tim! :P

(I personally get annoyed when I search on a book title and get mostly loosely-related audiovisual stuff, but that happens to me searching Library of Congress more often than searching LT, so I've learned to just suck it up...)

Oh lorax...chill.
I think the weird crap users will be few and far between, but if the owners of the site don't purge this info, it's here to stay. As it doesn't touch or interfere with book data, I can't see the harm where that's concerned. Have you found a party dress hassling Dickens or something?

16>

As it doesn't touch or interfere with book data, I can't see the harm where that's concerned.

If that were true I wouldn't care.

But it isn't. Do a search for "Good Omens". See what comes up. Then tell me you "can't see the harm". It's polluting the data every bit as much as spam would be.

In the previous thread lorax had an excellent example of where randon crap is messing with searches.

Do the following search for the title "Good Omens".

Three or four items down the list are some strange items. There are some works by "Good Omens". Pull a couple of them up. Check out the tags. They sure aren't books.

OK there all only 9 items. Not really causing a big problem. Today. So what will you say when someone sews up a couple period pieces dresses for a Halloween party and then catalogs them variously as Title:Tale of Two Cites Dress Author:Dickens. Sure its not likely but, it is possible.

The real problem is how to stop people without ruining the social community of LT. If we take the attitude its a "small problem big deal". that is sort of putting your head in the sand. On the other hand if we prevent anyone from entering anything without a ISBN. Well way to many good books are left out. So maybe something simple in the TOS would be good. Maybe a couple of polite comment to people pushing the edge.

The Good Omens perfumes were inspired by the book and with the permission of the authors. All sales benefit charity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Phoenix_Alchemy_Lab

Also,

http://www.librarything.com/topic/43269#733771
conceptdawg:
"Right, but you get my meaning. We can't even BEGIN to know what kinds of things people are going to use collections for. Heck, people are probably cataloging their fishing lures on here somewhere. They'll probably be dealing with "Haven't fished with it yet" and "Caught a big 'un with it" collections..."

I just did that Lorax and I still don't understand how one of those bogus books is interfering w/the data for actual books. Sure, it Fs up the SEARCH, but I don't see perfume info on a book page.

Will look into it further to see if there is dress/perfume/action figure data on the work page of a book.

19>

So what?

..okay, the real problem with those perfumes isn't that they're not books, it's that they're *badly catalogued*. Having Good Omens for the author is just deeply, deeply, wrong. BPAL is the author (and publisher); the Good Omens should if anywhere be in the series field (as "BPAL's Gaiman set" or whatever, not as just "Good Omens".)

That's like listing Tom Sawyer as the author of Tom & Huck. Um, no.

People who catalog things WRONG are indeed a problem, I agree with ya'll wholeheartedly there.

23>

Well, the real problem with that is that there isn't an "author", because they aren't written. So they're trying to force a square peg into a round hole, and there's no way given the book-like schema that LT has for the data to catalog it right -- cataloging perfumes on LT is sort of by definition cataloging them wrong.

The problem is this is LibraryThing not CatalogThing.

Just because a few library's have costumes or other such stuff. Doesn't mean it belongs in the library catalog.

Like I said earlier in post 9: LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books....

This is what the creators of the site stated as the purpose of this site.

Why do people constantly confuse catalog with library.

Here are a few definitions of library;

* a room where books are kept; "they had brandy in the library"
* a collection of literary documents or records kept for reference or borrowing
* a depository built to contain books and other materials for reading and study

Here are a few definitions of catalog:

* A catalog is a compilation of records describing the contents of a particular collection or group of collections
* A listing of a library's materials (books, bound volumes of periodicals, multimedia, etc.).
* Organized set of bibliographic records that represent the holdings of a particular collection. May be in the form of cards, book, computer outprint microform (COM) or an online public access catalog (OPAC).
* A formal inventory, description, and locating aid to the holdings of an archive, library, museum or other repository....

The thing to remember is that LibraryThing is a book cataloging site. Just because you want to catalog something else doesn't mean it belongs here.

A library catalog is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations. A bibliographic item can be any information entity (e.g., books, computer files, graphics, realia, cartographic materials, etc.), that is considered library material..

I have to agree with lorax here. I honestly don't give a rat's patooty if users catalogue whatever the heck they want, *as long is it doesn't mess up data*.

However, as has been explained above, it DOES mess up data. LibraryThing has enough data problems to begin with, what with Amazon crap and bad combining and stuff, crap like websites as authors and perfumes.... It messes up data EVEN MORE and it's not right.

As others have stated, this is LIBRARYTHING. Heck, it's not even CatalogueThing. It's LibraryThing. Books. Even cds and movies are part of libraries.

I would really, REALLY love it if an admin could weigh in on this.

> 19

So what? It's still a bottle of perfume and not a book, or anything remotely resembling a book.

#14

I'm bothered by it too but there is little we can do to stop it.

To be honest describing what real libraries do in the real world is a bit of a red herring. LibraryThing isn't aiming to replicate a real library IMO. There are far better websites that will act as a general catalogue.

#20
conceptdawg wasn't proposing that as a serious suggestion - it was a fanciful way of saying that a developer cannot anticipate every possible use a feature gets.

The real problem is that there are only a few instances of people cataloguing realia at the moment. But the more visibility that gets, the more realia is catalogued. What is a minor problem today can become a major problem tomorrow.

This is certainly an interesting thread! I had no idea when I started it that people had such strong feelings about cataloging.

I have problems when searching for things, but my difficulties are due to the various ways people enter data and quirks of site design and function. As--doing a site-wide search for a work or author that I have entered in my own library, and not finding it. I should find at least my own copy. Or entering a work, doing some combining, and then finding it has completely disappeared from the combine/separate page.

People are idiosyncratic about how they enter information; I have a book called Japanese Textiles in the Victoria and Albert Museum by Anna Jackson. Someone else has Japanese Textiles PB ** (VA) with no author. Someone else decided the author is the Victoria and Albert Museum. (This is where I have strong feelings--I want things done correctly, dammit. Which means "do it my way".)

Here's another example:
http://www.librarything.com/work/2889241/editions/38024531

I don't think entering non-books would cause any more problems than are already here.

#3: It's seems to me quite normal to include clothing in a thread like this one... ;-)

Well until site ownership dictates that non-book/media related items will be purged we'll just have to cope as best we can.

>30 Pepys:

Obviously, clothing often does include thread, but I'm not sure that it works the other way round :-)

I cataloged three crafts kits and a box of labels. They all have ISBNs.

30>

Who needs doctors when we have peeps like Pepys to keep us in stitches?

Be frayed. Be very frayed.

Yet another cut-up!

Be scarred. Be very scarred.

In all seriousness, I would vote for the site's exclusive devotion to printed reading material. -Paper money and patterned clothing completely excluded. There's a lot of trash with cash and flash.

Aye, there's the snub!

I would go so far as to consider the cataloguing of perfume bottles a noxious practice and a fragrant violation of the site's stated purpose.

No, sir. You are not one to put on airs.

And you have gotten enough from me already.

No need to make a stink about it.

This whole issue smells funny to me

http://www.librarything.com/work/book/39525580

just came up in "Recently Added by Other Members" ...

I wonder if the people who add these things realize how often other members are seeing them.

46: That's just spam.

v

46: That's a spam profile.

Have added it to the spam thread...