From the recommendations for The Devil’s Right Hand by Lilith Saintcrow (Orbit Books).

Series readers read series, and LibraryThing picks up on this. (And notice the series are all by different authors.) I suppose this is common knowledge, but I’m surprised at how strong the effect is. LibraryThing already has recommendations on series page—for example, the series here, Dante Valentine, but maybe we need a series-to-series recommender.

Two small changes: Group pages now show who among your friends and other connections are in the group. We’ve also restored group member-counts. Both look forward to a restored group-Zeitgeist.

Discuss here.

In light of a plan to create a “portable,” “branch-a-day library” in Portland, Maine–LibraryThing’s home–I’ve been thinking about the various possible sorts of “libraries outside of libraries.”

I am of two minds about such projects. I like to see interesting experiments, but dislike replacing valuable services. It doesn’t help that one of the two branches Portland is closing is in my neighborhood. As a branch, it wasn’t the best, but it would take quite a “portable library” to make up for it even so.

Nevertheless, I came up with a list of five types libraries outside of libraries (exluding what might be done with ebooks). Are there any I’m missing?

1. The Bookmobile.

2. The Short-Lived Library. Set up a branch library that lives for a defined period of time, like Boston’s Storefront Library. It’s like an “event store,” but a library. The Storefront Library was a big community success.

3. “Branch-for-a-day.” Find a bunch of spaces–empty storefronts, community center rooms or whatever–and roll full book carts into them on a schedule–Monday this neighborhood, Tuesday that neighborhood, etc. Has this ever been tried?

4. The Cafe Shelf. Set up mini-branches consisting of shelves–general or themed–in public commercial spaces, like coffee shops. The books would be owned but probably non-collection items. Care would be taken to tie all the books back to the main collection, with paper inserts or whatever.

5. The Vending-Machine Library. Like Conta Costa’s Library-a-Go-Go, a cross between Redbox and your library. It’s like a library, but with no pesky salaries and a terrible selection.

Thoughts?

After the success of cataloging the 1963 White House Library, we’ve made it into a monthly thing.

This month, starting at 12:00 EST Wednesday, March 2, and continuing for 24 hours, we’re going to be cataloging the on-board library of the U.S.S. California, as it was in 1905.

This California‘s library catalog were written up and published by the Government Printing Office, and has been scanned by the Internet Archive. Designed to serve the California’s 830-odd officers and men—the libraries were separate—it offers a unique view of the navy of the time, and of the country. The ship, then rechristened the San Diego, its library, and six sailors, went to the bottom of the ocean in 1918, the victim of a German U-boat.

• Check out the talk thread
• Jeremy has set up a wiki page
• All see the USSCalifornia library as it develops

The “Legacy Mob” is an amalgam—a mashup?—of two LibraryThing inventions:

• The Legacy Library, where members catalog famous or notable past collections, like that of Jefferson, Hemingway or the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• The Flash-Mob Cataloging, where members show up to catalog a small collection, like the Rhode Island Audubon or St. John’s Church in Beverly, MA

Last Saturday, we threw a party in Boston. Since the American Library Association midwinter meeting was already drawing many librarians and publishers to the city, we jumped on the chance to bring together bookish sorts for an evening of talking books, eating cheese and tipping a pint.

If I had to guess, I’d say there were around 75 people over the 2.5 hours we were holding court at the Green Dragon.

The LibraryThing for Libraries crew announced two new features at the conference, so the booth was busy. Abby’s recap is forthcoming on Thingology.

See all the pictures of the party and the LTFL booth here.