Archive for the ‘event’ Category

Tuesday, November 28th, 2023

LibraryThing’s 10th Annual Holiday Card Exchange

The 10th annual LibraryThing Holiday Card Exchange is here!

Here’s how it works:

  • Mail a holiday card to a random LibraryThing member. You can send up to 10 cards!
  • Choose a handmade or store bought card. Add a special note to personalize it.
  • You’ll get the same number of cards in return from other fellow LibraryThing members.
  • In order for cards to be delivered correctly to you, you must include your real name in the address box when signing up: use whatever matches your mailbox. (Only your matches and LibraryThing staff can see your address.)

» Sign up for the LibrayThing Holiday Card Exchange now

Sign-ups for the Card Exchange close Tuesday, December 5 at 12:00pm Eastern (17:00 GMT). We’ll inform you of your matches within an hour or so after we close. Send your cards out soon after.

Questions? Join the discussion on Talk.

Labels: card exchange, event, holiday

Monday, November 28th, 2022

9th Annual LibraryThing Holiday Card Exchange

The 9th annual LibraryThing Holiday Card Exchange is here!

How it works:

  • Mail a holiday card to a random LibraryThing member.
  • You can mail a handmade or storebought card. Add a note to personalize it.
  • You’ll get one from another member. (Only that member will see your address.*)

» Sign up for the LibrayThing Holiday Card Exchange now

Sign-ups for the Card Exchange closes Wednesday, December 7th at 12:00 PM Eastern (17:00 GMT). We’ll inform you of your matches within an hour or so after we close. Send your cards out soon after.

Questions? Join the discussion on Talk.


* In order for the cards you receive to be addressed to your real name, you must include your name in the address box. Some postal services require that addressee names match what’s on your mailbox.

Labels: card exchange, event, holiday

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Hunger Games box set winner!

Chosen randomly from over 200 comments on the blog post, the winner of the Hunger Games box set is blueAframe! Thanks to everyone who posted a comment.

Although some of the comments were not visible on the blog post, I assure you I had access to all of them on the admin side, and randomly chose from the entire set of contestants who submitted their comment before the deadline. I keep everyone’s interest in mind, as opposed to President Snow.

Labels: event

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Read a National Book Festival author’s book; ask them a question

The 75 Books Challenge for 2010 group has a “Take It or Leave It” challenge for August, where they read a book by one of the authors who will be attending the 10th annual National Book Festival.

You don’t have to be part of the 75 Books Challenge group to decide to read a NBF author’s book. Even if you can’t go to the festival itself (in Washington, D.C. on September 25), you may be inspired to read a book by one of the participating authors. Maybe this is your chance to finally pick up Everything Is Illuminated, Outlander or Read to Your Bunny. You can join the 75 Book Challenge folks on their thread, or keep your reading choice to yourself.

I can’t go to the festival this year, but I’ve arranged to ask many of the authors in attendance ONE interview question each. If you’d like to be the one to ask any of these authors a question, post it here before September 1st.

See the entire list of authors.

Labels: event, library of congress, reading

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Operation (LibraryThing) Paperback

The gist is this: donate your gently used books directly to troops stationed overseas, with inexpensive shipping thanks to media rate postage and the fact that overseas APO/FPO addresses are charged the same rates as the US.

The 75 Books Challenge for 2010 group came up with a fantastic idea: they are challenging themselves to collectively donate 75 books through Operation Paperback before the end of 2010. Then they decided it would be more fun to open the challenge up to everyone at LibraryThing, to see if we can collect ten times their initial challenge–750 books.

Operation Paperback is a non-profit that organizes the collection of books to send to American troops* deployed overseas. Considering we’re a site devoted to the love of reading and books, I think it’s only fair we share!  It’s a win-win, giving books to troops who otherwise don’t have access to leisure reading, and making space on your shelves for more books! Sign up on the Operation Paperback site to send some books (they’ll tell you how and where to send them), then list them here, so we can work towards the goal if 750 books. Check the LibraryThing Operation Paperback page to see what books we’ve sent.

You can read about which genres are most popular**,  how the shipping works and what else you can do to brighten the day of folks who are far from home, on the Operation Paperback FAQ page. They say that a box of 20 paperbacks cost about $5 to ship to any military address.

Operation Paperback needs help spreading the word among troops that this program is available to them.  If you’re stationed outside the US, or have a friend or family member who is, sign up to get books.

*If you’re aware of programs like this for the troops of other countries, please leave a comment, and we’ll add the information.
**I talked to the good folks at Operation Paperback, who said that since 95% of troops are male, so there’s no need to send chick-lit or romance novels. Apparently, they end up with plenty anyway. There’s more information about this on their FAQ.

Thanks to Jayel Aheram for the photo.

Labels: event

Monday, January 25th, 2010

24-hour Readathon wrap-up

We may not have a logo yet, but the first LibraryThing Readathon was a success. A lot of the fun is reading the thread on Book Talk where participants described their hour of reading. It was interesting to find out where other people chose to read for their designated hour, and absolutely wonderful to hear about the books everyone’s reading right now. You can read the whole thread here, which includes touchstones to the books read. Participants could also tag the book(s) they read. People also started including an excerpt from what they had read, which added a sense of nowness.

It was really fun helping in the creation of a new kind of event, which felt very community-oriented yet very easy to participate in. I myself woke up, grabbed my book, and started reading in bed. Sure, there wasn’t any brie provided (unlike the Boston meetup), but it also didn’t require getting out of bed.

We called it a beta test, because we weren’t sure what would need changing during the event, or for future events. We’ll talk about what to change, so know we’re planning on another event sometime in the spring. If you’d like to join in the organizing conversation, jump in.

Labels: event, LibraryThing event, ltreadathonbeta, readathon, reading

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

LibraryThing party in Boston

If you’ll be in Boston this Saturday, January 16th , come to our LibraryThing Meetup!

We’re taking advantage of the American Library Assocation conference in Boston to pull together all our favorite bibliophiles, eat food, drink drinks, and talk about the state of books, the future of the book, and what you just finished reading.
We’re having it at The Green Dragon Tavern—a nice fit, as “The Green Dragon” is one of the most active groups on LibraryThing.
In true LibraryThing tradition we’ll be providing ALL THE BAKED BRIE YOU CAN HANDLE, along with other light fare, perhaps including some that don’t revolve around cheese. Since we’re not doing ConferenceThing,* we’ve got some money to burn, and can offer a snack-y dinner instead. You buy the beer.
Date: January 16th, 2010
Time: 5:30-8:00 pm
Location: The Green Dragon (see Local event) – 11 Marshall St Boston, MA 02108
Updates: Follow @conferencething or @librarythingtim on Twitter

Directly after our event there’s a tweetup for ALA conference-goers at the same location. We like to keep our 2.0 events convenient!

*Our original plan was to have ConferenceThing, a mini-conference giving librarians and bibliophiles a chance to talk about books in all their forms, and the book world. That didn’t work out, as we couldn’t find speakers and in a choice between hearing Tim speak in front of a projector and watching Tim and Abby shovel brie…

Thanks to merelymel for the photo.

Labels: ALA, conference, Conferencething, event, LibraryThing event, Midwinter

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

A new holiday for December: Do Nothing but Read Day

Do Nothing but Read Day is this Sunday, December 20th.

It all started by a library science student wishing out loud that she could spend a day doing nothing but reading. She then started a blog to make it happen.

Here are the requirements:

  • you must read more than one book (they can be short, also short stories and audiobooks count!)
  • comfy clothing (jammies preferable)
  • no shoes (slippers are ok)
  • mugs of beverages and snacks

Optional:

  • sleepy cat(s)
  • blankies

Add the tag DNBRD2009 to whatever books you’re going to read, and check out the tag page to see what others are going to be reading on Sunday!

The catch is that if you’re reading all day, you can’t post in the Talk thread about it on Sunday. So, go and discuss it now (and afterwards).

Labels: DNBRD, DNBRD2009, Do Nothing but Read Day, event, reading

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

LibraryThing at ALA

Tim and Casey tossing a rhinoI’ve posted the details of our attendance at this year’s American Library Association conference in Chicago over on Thingology. We have a booth in the exhibit hall, and we’ll be showing off new features for LibraryThing for Libraries.

Labels: ALA, conference, event, librarything for libraries, LTFL

Sunday, May 18th, 2008

LibraryThing at the Philadelphia Book Festival

This weekend I represented LibraryThing at the Philadelphia Book Festival*. We had a booth, where I got to geek out about books and LibraryThing with readers, authors, and various styles of bibliophile.

I also gave a talk on the fine, fine merits of LibraryThing.

I met some awesome LibraryThing members, and a number of people who I think will be joining our ranks.

I’m glad to have gone to such a book-lovin’ event, in a really cool city.

*Abby was originally supposed to go, but I went in her stead.

Labels: event, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Book Festival, Sonya