We’ve just released a new feature for LibraryThing for Libraries: Reviews. We’ve been working on this for months, and are itching to show it to you. (If you’re at Internet Librarian in Monterey, come by the booth for a full demonstration.)
The idea is simple:
- Your library patrons get to review anything in your library.
- Libraries share reviews, so a critical mass can build.
- Implementation is absurdly simple—one short piece of JavaScript added to the catalog template. Period.
The “extras” send it into orbit:
- It comes with 200,000 high-quality, vetted reviews from LibraryThing.
- Your patrons get blog widgets and a Facebook application to show off their reviews—and their love for their library. Don’t get why this is great? Keep reading.
Check it out. Three libraries are currently showing reviews, together with the other LibraryThing for Libraries enhancements–similar books, tags and other editions and translations. Click on the reviews wording (see above) to launch the reviews “lightbox.”
- Los Gatos Public Library (California)
- High Plains Library District (Colorado)
- Mount Laurel Library (New Jersey)
Reviews in your catalog. The reviews wording shows up on all detail pages–not just books. You can also elect to show reviews on “search” or “list” pages. (Neither Los Gatos or High Plains have done this.)
LibraryThing for Libraries is not an “external” service. Everything happens in the catalog, not on some external site. “Reviews” works the same way. Like the rest of LTFL, it loads after the rest of the page, so it doesn’t slow it down.
Lightbox magic. Other reviews solutions have either put showing and editing reviews in an external window–kludgy and likely to trigger pop-up alerts–or shoe-horned reviews into the catalog page, mucking it up and subjecting reviews to space and style constraints.
We decided to do something different, putting reviews in a “lightbox,” like our Tag browser. This combines the best of both solutions–in-place action and a rock-solid, stylish look. Reviews are in the catalog, but they aren’t imprisoned by it.
Two-hundred thousand LibraryThing reviews. We think LibraryThing for Libraries reviews, especially with our widgets and Facebook app., are going to push patron reviewing to a new level. But the fact remains that no library project has yet managed to get patrons reviewing on the scale of an Amazon or a LibraryThing. And nothing kills people’s incentive to review than a desert–like restaurants, emptiness begets emptiness and success success.
So we’re kicking in over 200,000 LibraryThing reviews–gently vetted by LibraryThing staff.
These 200,000 reviews put LibraryThing miles ahead of our only “reviews” competitor, Chilifresh. They doesn’t release totals, but their numbers are low. Here for example are Chilifresh vs. LibraryThing for Libraries numbers for the last eight Pulitzer winners:
| Pulitzer Prize winners | Chilifresh | LibraryThing | |
| 2008 | The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz | 1 review | 24 reviews |
| 2007 | The Road by Cormac McCarthy | 8 reviews | 199 reviews |
| 2006 | March by Geraldine Brooks | 1 review | 50 reviews |
| 2005 | Gilead by Marilynne Robinson | 0 reviews | 45 reviews |
| 2004 | The Known World by Edward P. Jones | 1 review | 40 reviews |
| 2003 | Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides | 1 review | 120 reviews |
| 2002 | Empire Falls by Richard Russo | 1 review | 32 reviews |
| 2001 | The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon | 1 review | 69 reviews |
| 2000 | Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri | 0 review | 27 reviews |
When push comes to shove, you don’t need 199 reviews. But Putlizer winners are popular books. When a popular book has 199 reviews, less popular books will have five or ten. Conversely, if Gilead and Interpreter of Maladies can’t get a review, the rare stuff definitely won’t have it.
Want to blog that table? (I wish you would. It took me forever to make.) Here’s the HTML.
Blog widgets and Facebook application. I do a lot of talking about “User Generated Content” (a horrible, dehumanizing phrase). Again and again I hit one point that–I think–Library 2.0 too often misses: User Generated Content isn’t about “getting something”–it’s about giving something.
People don’t review books to help a library, or even their community. They do it to get something back–a record of what they read and an opportunity to express themselves–and express themselves to the people they know.
This means two things. First, unlike some other systems, we made sure every member had a page–and one with a permanent link, so they could send it to friends. And second, it meant that we make sure patrons could showcase their reviews outside of their library catalog, where they “live” on the web. Both options are available from review members’ “settings” page.
Check out LibraryThing for Libraries’ “Reviews at My Library” on Facebook in the screen-shot. (The application is here, but you need to have a Facebook membership to get to it.) Here’s the blog widget in action:
More soon. I’ve got to run to our booth at Internet Librarian, but I’ll blog more soon. LibraryThing members will want to know how the two systems connect.*
*Members can opt-out of their reviews being seen in libraries–just edit your profile, although, because of caching, changes are not immediate.
We’ll be at 
