June « 2011 « The LibraryThing Blog

Archive for June, 2011

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

June State of the Thing

This month’s State of the Thing, LibraryThing’s monthly newsletter of features, author interviews and various forms of bookish delight, should have made its way to your inbox by now. You can also read it online.

This month I talked to award-winning author Bharati Mukherjee about her latest novel, Miss New India. Find how about her research visits to call centers in Bangalore, whose plays she memorized as a child, and what she’s reading now. Read the full interview.

I also talked to Kate Parkin of Hodder & Stoughton about the new flipback book format being released in the UK later this week. I started a Talk thread to discuss flipbacks as well, so feel free to join the conversation!

Read previous State of the Thing newsletters.

If you don’t get State of the Thing, you can add it in your email preferences. You also have to have an email address listed.

Labels: authors, state of the thing

Friday, June 24th, 2011

QR Codes and Library Anywhere

QR code in the catalog:

Jumps to the same record
in Library Anywhere:

We’ve added a QR code feature for Library Anywhere, our mobile product, to tie the mobile site to the regular catalog in a new way.

Libraries can include a QR code that LibraryThing generates and dynamically adds to each catalog page. Scan the QR code with a smartphone scanning app (e.g. RedLaser, Scan) and the phone will jump directly to that record in your mobile catalog on Library Anywhere.

Then walk into the stacks with the record on your phone, or just add it to your saved list on Library Anywhere. However you use it, it’s a direct link from the desktop catalog to the catalog on your phone.

Try it out
We have QR codes up in a few catalogs so far:

Library Anywhere is now the mobile catalog and website for 130 different library systems, including Ocean State Libraries, Libraries Online, and Wake County Public Library. See all the libraries using Library Anywhere by simply clicking the … menu within Library Anywhere and choose “Select a Library”. Read more about Library Anywhere here.

To order Library Anywhere, or get a free trial, call 877 340-2400, or email Peder.Christensen@bowker.com. You can also email questions to Abby@librarything.com.

If you’re in New Orleans for the American Library Association conference, come visit us at booth 827. and we’ll show it to you in person!

Labels: library anywhere, QR code

Friday, June 24th, 2011

LibraryThing for Libraries-Spotlight Awards

We’ve just added a feature to spotlight certain awards within our Series and Awards LibraryThing for Libraries enhancement. The awards enhancement covers 25,000 different awards and honors—from the National Book Award and the Booker Prize to the Salon Book Award and New York Times Notable Book of the Year, or even Oprah’s Book Club selections.

While some books have received one or two different awards, others may have over twenty. By default, we only show the first few (alphabetically) on a book’s page in the catalog, with a “see more” link that expands to show all. Our new spotlighting feature allows a library to choose certain awards and force them to float to the top of this list.

An Australian library can, for example, highlight local awards, that may otherwise get lost in the list. Or perhaps it’s the month when the Orange Prize is picked, and you want to spotlight all the books on the longlist or short list.

To use this feature, go to the Series and Awards moderation page within the LTFL admin. Along with the moderation we’ve always provided (don’t think Oprah’s Book Club counts as an honor? Fine, remove it!), you’ll now see a ‘promote’ button. You can search for awards by name, or browse. Spotlighted awards will always be pushed to the top of the list, and will appear with a star icon next to them.

Labels: awards, librarything for libraries

Friday, June 24th, 2011

The Perfect Library Catalog?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the perfect library catalog. That is, it uses all nine LibraryThing for Libraries OPAC enhancements—Tags, Lexile® Measures, Other Editions, Reviews, Shelf Browse, Similar Books, Series, Awards and QR Codes. All together, we’ve turned an ordinary Webpac library catalog into a social, shareable, graphical, informational and mobile beast!(1)

(Click to see full-size)

Great as it is, this catalog doesn’t exist. Abby and I are working on new handouts for LibraryThing for Libraries and Library Anywhere. For the former we needed a library that used all our enhancements, including a new one we’re announcing today (QR Codes). Unfortunately, although more than 200 library systems use LibraryThing for Libraries to make their OPACs better (a full list), none have absolutely every one of them today. So we’ve made our own, leaning heavily on the excellent Chemeketa Cooperative Regional Library Service, which has almost all our enhancements.

If you’re in New Orleans for the American Library Assocation, come visit us at booth 827. We’ll show you how to make your catalog as good as this one! Or better, because it will actually exist. Oh, and pick up one of our nifty badge thingies.

1. If it had a search bar it would be truly perfect.

Labels: librarything for libraries, LTFL, ltfl libraries

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

LTFL adds translation

LibraryThing for Libraries libraries now have the ability to translate the interface of the LTFL enhancements–making them much more usable in non-English speaking countries.

The header section had always been editable but this new feature goes far beyond that, finding every instance of English text and letting each library translate the string into a different language, or even just to edit it to their liking. See, for example, the text in the lightbox that opens when you click to read reviews, at this German library in the screenshot to the right.

We know that the logical next step is to allow for a dual language interface–switch between English and French, for example–and we’re thinking through how we’ll handle that, but wanted to release this as a first step.

To enable the translation feature, click on “Edit/Translate Interface” on the Enhancements tab in the LTFL admin site. Then click “Edit/Translate Interface” under the Configure section, and start translating!

Questions? Email abby@librarything.com

Labels: languages, librarything for libraries, translation

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

Library Anywhere adds support for Evergreen and Aleph

We have a number of updates for Library Anywhere to announce. First off is the inclusion of two new systems that we can now work with:

We’ve just added support for Aleph and Evergreen. If you’re a library on one of those systems who’s been patiently waiting to use Library Anywhere, let us know and we’ll set you up with a free trial.

That means that Library Anywhere now works with all the major (and some minor) OPAC systems, including: III (Webpac and Webpac Pro), Horizon Information Portal, Sirsi (eLibrary, iBistro, iLink, Web2), Polaris, Civica Spydus, Voyager 7, Koha, Aleph, Evergreen, Destiny Follett and Infocentre, and Companion Alexandria.

To order Library Anywhere, or get a free trial, call 877 340-2400, or email Peder.Christensen@bowker.com. You can also email questions to Abby@librarything.com.

Visit our booth at ALA Annual: booth 827 and we’ll show it to you in person!

Labels: Aleph, Evergreen, library anywhere

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

New recommendations: What should you borrow?

Member sturlington recently proposed the following:

“You know what would be a neat feature? If I could get a list of books from a friend’s library that are recommended for me based on my library. For borrowing/mooching purposes. For instance, my husband is putting in his books right now, and it would be cool to quickly get a list of his books that I might enjoy.”

I thought this an excellent idea, and easy to implement, so I did it. It’s a great way to scout out your friends’ libraries.

If you’re signed in, you can see the feature on every other (public) member’s profile page. Or you can check out what books I should borrow from Jeremy (a lot), and vice versa (a few).

Come talk about it on Talk.

Labels: recommendations

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

Visit us at ALA

Tim and I will be at ALA in New Orleans later this week, and with three different fancy badge ribbons to give out. So if your badge is feeling a little light and you want some flair, stop by! Booth 827.

We also have a slew of improvements and features we’re adding to Library Anywhere and to the LibraryThing for Libraries enhancements–watch the blog this week for more.

Lastly, remember, we’re having a meet-up on Saturday morning for anyone in the area! Details in this blog post.

Labels: ALA

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

Meet up in New Orleans / Get in free to ALA exhibits

Photo by chuckyeager, released under
CC-Attribution 2.0 Generic (see on Flickr).

Cafe Du Monde meet up
We’re having a LibraryThing meet up in New Orleans! Tim and I will be around for the ALA Annual Conference, and LT member benitastrnad is coordinating a meet up.*

So, anyone who will be in New Orleans, LA for the ALA Conference, or who live in the area, can meet-up at the Cafe Du Monde on Jackson Square from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, June 25, 2011. This is a buy your own beignets and coffee event where we can gather to meet and talk about books, reading, and LibraryThing.

The Cafe Du Monde is a short distance from the New Orleans convention center by trolley or a short walk to Jackson Square from most of the main convention hotels. The Cafe Du Monde is a NOLA French Market tradition since 1862, famous for it’s chicory laced coffee and a Cajun pastry called beignets. Come join us!

Free “exhibits-only” pass to ALA
Since we’re exhibiting at ALA this year, we also have some free badges to give out. They’re exhibit-only, so you can’t get into the sessions, but it’ll let you in to walk around the exhibits, snag some free ARCs, and, of course, stop by the LibraryThing booth (booth 827) to meet Tim and Abby.

Just click here and it’ll walk you through the registration process.

*many thanks to her, since not only do I not know the area at all, I’m a little crazy getting prepared for ALA!

Labels: ALA, librarything for libraries, meet up, new orleans

Sunday, June 12th, 2011

Recommended for you

Borrowing a feature from Netflix, I’ve introduced a “Recommended for you” section on work page. It appears whenever a book appears on the “LibraryThing Recommendations” list of any of your books.

As with other such lists, it uses the standard collection colors. It only lists books which you have marked to “include in recommendations.”

Come talk about it here.

Labels: recommendations

Monday, June 6th, 2011

June Early Reviewers batch up!

The June 2011 batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We’ve got 103 books this month, and a grand total of 2,942 copies to give out.
First, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your mailing address and make sure it’s correct.
Then request away! The list of available books is here:
http://www.librarything.com/er/list
The deadline to request a copy is Thursday, June 30th at 6 p.m. EDT.

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to the US, Canada, the UK, Israel, Australia, and a whole bunch more. Make sure to check the flags by each book to see if it can be sent to your country.
Thanks to all the publishers participating this month!

Gefen Publishing House	Open Books	HighBridge
Hunter House	Penguin Young Readers Group	Bloomsbury
Crossway	Del Rey	Spectra
Doubleday Books	Blacksmith Books	Orbit Books
Kregel Publications	Seven Stories Press	Little, Brown and Company
The Permanent Press	Tupelo Press	Spirit Scope Publishing
WaterBrook Press	BookViewCafe	William Morrow
John Wiley & Sons	Tundra Books	Putnam Books
Riverhead Books	Plume	Wigton Publishing
Red Clover Press	Bantam Dell	Harper Paperbacks
Nolo	Oceanview Publishing	Gotham Books
Kane Miller Books	The Writer’s Coffee Shop	Modern History Press
Loving Healing Press	Hampton House Publishing, LLC	JournalStone
Rovira i Virgili University Press	St. Martin’s Griffin	Lucky Bat Books
MMIP	Human Kinetics	Cascada Productions
Wilderness Press	Menasha Ridge Press	Zed Books
Orca Book Publishers	Saint Columba Press	Ballantine Books