Archive for June, 2014

Friday, June 27th, 2014

Sneak peek: new and expanded recommendations!

New and expanded recommendations will be coming soon to LibraryThing for Libraries!

We’re demoing this now at ALA (Tim and KJ are set up at booth 1247, stop by), but here’s a sneak peek, showing how similar books can be expanded and broken down to see different types of recommendations, like more by the same author, recommendations by readers, books in a similar genre, recommendations by tag, similar authors, and more.

NewRecsFullpage

MoreSimilarsLB

This is an improvement to our existing similar items recommendations, and will be available for no additional cost to all libraries using similar items (part of the Catalog Enhancement package)! Stay tuned for an official release soon.

Labels: librarything for libraries, LTFL, recommendations, similar books

Tuesday, June 24th, 2014

LibraryThing in Vegas for ALA

Going to the ALA Annual Conference in Las Vegas this weekend? So are we! LibraryThing for Libraries will have a booth in the Technology Pavilion (that’s row 1200, booth #1247).

Stop by and say hi to Tim and KJ, and get a demo of our LTFL products, including some exciting new improvements to our recommendations feature. (Stay tuned for an official announcement.)

Are you in the area and want a free pass just to the exhibit hall? We can help! Click here to get an exhibits-only pass.

Labels: ALA, ala2014

Thursday, June 19th, 2014

Early Reviewers Bonus Batch from Hachette!

hachette_logos

Hachette, the publisher behind imprints like Little, Brown, Grand Central and Orbit, is participating in Early Reviewers in a big way this month—so much so that we decided to put together a “bonus batch” showcasing of all the great books available across their many imprints. All told, Hachette is offering 825 copies of 47 titles!

Note: For distribution-rights issues, we’re able to offer books in this showcase to US members alone. We hope to expand to all our members the next time we do a showcase like this.

The titles offered include Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s Marina, Megan Abbott’s The Fever, The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman, Shadows in the Vineyard by Maximillian Potter(1), and a much-anticipated debut novel from NPR-contributor Brittani Sonnenberg, Home Leave. They’re repeating Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, which just won the 2014 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and whose sequel we hope to get into Early Reviewers in a couple months.

Note: all Hachette Showcase Bonus Batch titles are listed separately from the regular June Early Reviewers batch. Members are eligible to win books from BOTH the June batch, and the Hachette Showcase Bonus Batch.

You can see the full list of titles in the Hachette Showcase here. To request a copy:

First, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your email/mailing address and make sure it’s correct.

» Then request away!

The deadline to request a copy is Tuesday, July 1st at 6pm Eastern.

Questions or comments about the Hachette Showcase? Come tell me what you think on Talk.

I’d like to give a huge “Thank you!” to everyone at Hachette who helped me coordinate this bonus batch!


Small print: Winning a book from either the Hachette Showcase or the regular June Early Reviewers batch will not affect your chances of winning a book from the other. You may end up with multiple wins! If you’ve already made your requests for the June batch, but would prefer to win titles from the Hachette Showcase instead, you can unrequest titles by going to the appropriate Early Reviewers list, selecting the batch you’d like to view from the drop-down menu, and clicking “Unrequest” next to any books you’ve already requested.

1. Full disclosure: Potter’s literary agent is a friend of Tim’s.

Labels: bonus batch, early reviewers

Thursday, June 19th, 2014

Rate Recommendations

I’ve added a new feature for members to help improve the quality of LibraryThing’s automatic recommendations. It mirrors something we did for author recommendations. This time it’s for works, addressing those times when you see a bum recommendation, or spot a book that’s too low on the list.

You can find the new “Rate Recommendations” feature in the “LibraryThing Recommendations” section of work pages. Click on “Rate Recommendations” and you get the expanded “rating” view.

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Rating is divided into ten boxes.(1) All things being equal, giving something six or more sends the recommendation up, and giving something five or less sends it down. We’re going to see how it develops before finalizing the algorithm, which will remain intentionally obscure.(2)

In addition to appearing on work pages, I’ve also made a page for members to rapidly peruse their works’ recommendations, and chime in on them, without going work page by work page. It keeps track of how many works’ recommendations you rated, among other statistics.

You can find your page here: https://www.librarything.com/profile_raterecommendations.php

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Here’s the Talk post about it. Come tell us what you think!


(1) It’s the same system as five stars, with half stars. Indeed, that was the original system for the author recommendation rating. But we decided it was too much like rating the book.
(2) At present, we’ve giving it a lot of power. This will probably be reduced. Either way, there’ll be factors other than the mere presence of a rating at work.

Labels: new feature, new features, recommendations

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2014

June Early Reviewers batch is live!

The May 2014 batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We’ve got 131 titles this month, with a grand total of 4,150 copies to give out.

If you haven’t already, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your mailing/email address and make sure they’re correct.

» Then request away!

The deadline to request copies from the May batch is Monday, June 30th at 6pm Eastern.

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to the US, Canada, the UK, Israel, Australia, France, and many 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!

Akashic Books Quirk Books Riverhead Books
Bethany House Lion Fiction Henry Holt and Company
Taylor Trade Publishing Sucker Literary Cleis Press
Gotham Books Eerdmans Books for Young Readers Salinas Press
Healdsburg Press Rockridge Press Demos Health
Crux Publishing Five Rivers Publishing Random House
Palgrave Macmillan Candlewick Press Del Rey
Gefen Publishing House Spiegel & Grau Anaphora Literary Press
Apex Publications Jupiter Gardens Press Bantam Dell
Gray & Company, Publishers Prospect Hill Press Immortal Ink Publishing
Bhive Comics Human Kinetics Exterminating Angel Press
William Morrow Small Beer Press Pants On Fire Press
askmar publishing Vinspire Publishing, LLC Bluffer’s Guides
JournalStone Crown Publishing Humanist Press
ForeEdge Prufrock Press Brandt Street Press
WallpaperScholar.Com Recorded Books McFarland
Algonquin Books Plume Ballantine Books
Orca Book Publishers BookViewCafe White Wave
CarTech Books Bell Bridge Books Booktrope

Labels: early reviewers, LTER