Archive for January, 2016

Thursday, January 14th, 2016

Import your Shelfari library and get a free LibraryThing account

We’ve long supported imports from Shelfari into LibraryThing, and with the news that Shelfari is being merged with Goodreads, some folks are looking for a new online home for their books. Now you can import your Shelfari library, and receive an automatic upgrade to a free lifetime LibraryThing account! Here’s how to do it:

UPDATE: We’ve seen a number of Shelfarians becoming more active on LT recently, and we’re happy to have you! You might find some of your old friends over in the Shelfarians on LibraryThing group, created and managed by your fellows.

Export Your Shelfari Data

You’ve got a couple options when it comes to exporting your Shelfari library, and can either directly download a file, or have one emailed to you. See Shelfari’s instructions here.

Sign Up for LibraryThing

It’s quick and free! Head over to LibraryThing.com and click “Join Now.” Enter your desired username and password (we also recommend including your email address, for password resetting purposes), and you’re good to go!

If you’ve already got a LibraryThing account, you can import your Shelfari library to your existing account.

Import Your Shelfari File to LibraryThing

Once you have your Shelfari export file, go to our Shelfari Import page and upload it there.

Enjoy

Welcome to your new library on LibraryThing! We’re happy to have you. Take a look around, and get to know the place a bit. We recommend the Short Introduction for a quick overview of features.

If you have any questions, Talk—our discussion forum—is a great place to start, and you can always email us at info@librarything.com.

Labels: import, shelfari

Tuesday, January 5th, 2016

Job: Remote Sysadmin for LibraryThing

We’ll let you out from time to time.

Work with a great team, without meeting them!

LibraryThing is looking for a full-time systems administrator, starting soon. The job can be remote or local to Portland, Maine.

Why? Seth Ryder, LibraryThing’s sysadmin is moving on to an exciting new job at HarperCollins. This is bad for us—Seth was a fantastic shepherd of the LibraryThing systems. The good news is, thanks to Seth, our systems have never been stronger, more organized or better documented!

Specifics

Hours: In the past, we’ve listed the job as full- or part-time. This time we’re listing it as full-time, expecting the new sysadmin to take on various systems projects. We remain open to considering part-time applicants who are a particularly good fit.

Qualifications: We’re looking for someone with broad systems administration experience, who can quickly pick up unfamiliar technologies, diagnose problems and keep everything running smoothly. You need to be calm under pressure, cautious and an excellent communicator. We’re a small team, so when things break at 4am, you need to be available.

Work Anywhere. LibraryThing is “headquartered” in Portland, Maine, but the servers are in Massachusetts and most employees are in neither.

Experience: Applicants need considerable experience running websites. Experience in Linux systems administration is essential; we use RHEL and CentOS, but you’ve probably got professional experience with at least half a dozen distros. Experience with MySQL is also important, including replication, monitoring and tuning. You will need to be able to demonstrate experience with remote server administration including lights-out management techniques and equipment.

Technologies: Here’s a partial list of the technologies we use.

  • Apache
  • Nginx
  • MySQL, Master-Slave replication
  • Memcached
  • Solr, Elasticsearch
  • Subversion
  • PHP
  • Python
  • Bash shell scripting
  • Munin, Graphite, Logstash (ELK)
  • Xen and KVM virtualization
  • rrdtool
  • NFS
  • LVM
  • iscsi

Compensations: Salary plus great health insurance.

How to Apply: Email sysadminjob@librarything.com. Send an email with your resume. In your email, review the blog post above, and indicate how you match up with the job. Be specific.(1) Please do not send a separate cover letter.

If you want to stand out, go ahead and take the LibraryThing Programming Test. If programming is part of your skills, we’ll ask you to take it before we interview you.

We aren’t considering head-hunters or companies.


1. This job is going to be posted lots of places, and that means we’ll get a lot of people “rolling the dice.” If you don’t seem like you’re applying for this job, we’ll ignore your email. If you want us to KNOW you read the job post–and are therefore a detail-oriented person–please put “banana” in the subject line, as in “Sysadmin Job (Banana).” Really.

Labels: employees, employment, sysadmin, systems adminitration, Uncategorized

Tuesday, January 5th, 2016

January Early Reviewers batch is live!

The January 2016 batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We’ve got 100 titles this month, and a grand total of 2,656 copies to give out. Which books are you hoping to snag this month? Come tell us on Talk!

If you haven’t already, 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 a copy is Monday, January 25th 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!

Lion Fiction Velvet Morning Press Random House
McBooks Press Beacon Press Candlewick Press
Henry Holt and Company MSI Press Raven Reads
Orca Book Publishers McFarland Crown Publishing
Akashic Books Oneworld Publications William Morrow
Chronicle Books Eerdmans Books for Young Readers ForeEdge
University Press of New England Prufrock Press Meadowbrook Press
Apex Publications The Dial Press Ballantine Books
HighBridge Audio Recorded Books Loomis Park Press LLC
Avery Thurston Howl Publications Tundra Books
Crux Publishing Booktrope Raincloud Press
BookViewCafe EsKape Press Bellevue Literary Press
EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing

Labels: early reviewers, LTER