Update 6/22/11: When we first launched Library Anywhere, we were eager to have public pricing. It’s certainly a novelty in the library world, where wiggly pricing and negotiation are the norm. And we’ve used public pricing for the past year, keyed off of how many physical buildings/branches the library has. What we’ve found, unfortunately, is that while it pleased many people, it made just as many people unhappy. We’ve decided that we’re going to reevaluate our pricing metrics, and to take down this public list. And, of course, we’ll maintain pricing that’s far less then similar products!
Archive for January, 2010
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Library Anywhere Prices (Public!)
Labels: library anywhere, librarything for libraries, mobile, mobile web
Monday, January 25th, 2010
January State of the Thing
Ring-a-ding-ding. I’ve just sent out the first State of the Thing (our monthly newsletter) of 2010. Sign up to get it, or you can read a copy online.
This month’s State of the Thing features our iPhone app, site improvements and as always, free books.
We also have two exclusive author interviews:
Colum McCann won the 2009 National Book Award in fiction for Let the Great World Spin. The plot of the book follows a handful of characters who are witness to the 1974 tight-rope walk across the Twin Towers of New York, but this book is more than the sum of its plots. McCann lives in New York, with his family. His previous work includes Dancer and Zoli.
Joshua Ferris’ new, just-released novel is The Unnamed. Like a wind-up toy, the main character’s unknown medical condition will suddenly whisk him from wherever he is on a forced walk that ends only from exhaustion, miles from home. His family adjusts, as well as a family can, to an unexplainable disease. Joshua’s previous novel, Then We Came to the End, was a 2007 National Book Award finalist. At the moment, Ferris is writing an essay on the work of the Norwegian painter Lars Elling, and according to Ferris “contemplating about six ways to kill myself on account of it. I want to do both the painter & his work justice but fear I simply lack the lexicon.”
Next month, we’ll be interviewing Elizabeth Kostova and Holly Black. Have a question for them? Post it here and we might use it in the upcoming interview.
Labels: state of the thing
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
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
LibraryThing 24-hour Readathon (beta)
Inspired by LibraryThingers participating in Do Nothing But Read Day, member squeakychu suggested we have our own event which doesn’t limit a day’s activity to just reading. (It was discovered that it’s really hard to do nothing but read, when the doorbell rings, or pets/children need tending.)
Thus was born the LibraryThing 24-hour Readathon*. The idea is to have LibraryThing members from across the world reading continuously for 24 hours. Each member is committing to reading for one hour, at a designated time. We’ve built in a redundancy system, in case someone is trapped in their car in a snowstorm … without a book. Some people will start on the hour, others on the half hour.
Date: Saturday, January 23rd
Time: You choose
If you’re interested, sign up here. You can read the development and ongoing rules of the Readathon on the Site Talk thread. You can direct any questions to that Talk thread as well. Once you’ve read for your hour, come describe it on the Book Talk thread.
This is an event for any LibraryThing member (and anyone you want to convince to read along with you), and the only requirement is that for the hour you sign up for, you read something (or listen to an audiobook).
This is the first of what we’re hoping to be many readathons. Future events may include reading a specific genre, reading for different increments of time (15 minutes, out loud?) or reading for longer amounts of time than 24 hours (how long can LibraryThing members keep reading? Years?)
*Beta. We’re using this first event as a kind of trial to figure it out.
Labels: readathon
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Boston brie party
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.
Labels: Uncategorized
