Author Archive

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Our First New Zealand Legacy Library!

We’re very pleased to announce the first New Zealand-based Legacy Library, that of Pei te Hurinui Jones (1898-1976). Jones joins Alfred Deakin (the second Prime Minister of Australia) in our Antipodean Legacies collection. Mr. Jones was a leading Māori scholar and translator (he’s known for translating three volumes of Māori chants and song-poetry into English, and three Shakespeare plays into Māori). You can read a more complete biographical sketch on his profile page.

This catalog is thanks to the efforts of David Friggens, Systems Librarian at the University of Waikato, which holds the book collection. Thanks to David for making it happen, and we hope you’ll all find it useful.

On other Legacy fronts, user jcbrunner reports that work on Thomas Mann’s library proceeds, with 2,000 records now in place (about 60% of the total). Almost 350 titles have been entered for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Robert Graves’ LT library now contains nearly 500 titles. Don’t forget, you can check out all the libraries-in-progress and volunteer your services here.

The Libraries of Early America subset continues to expand, with recent work focusing on the completion of the collection of Landon Carter (by staff at the Rockefeller Library, Colonial Williamsburg) and ongoing work on the libraries of the Thomas Shepards of early Massachusetts, balloonist-doctor John Jeffries, and continued additions to earlier collections. For any leads on those, as always, please drop me a note.

Labels: antipodes, legacies, legacy libraries, new zealand

posted by LibraryThing @3:42 pm 3 Comments »
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    • Friday, December 19th, 2008

    Buon Natale a tutti gli italiani su LibraryThing…

    … e a quelli che presto si uniranno a noi 😉

    Abbiamo appena riattivato la possibilità di catalogare libri italiani via DEAstore ( ci scusiamo per il probelma ma DEA stave lanciando una nuova versione del sito con diverse nuove tecnologie). Se non avete ancora aggiunto il DEAstore alle vostre fonti di catalogazione, potete farlo scegliendolo tra le fonti italiane.

    Se avete già fatto tutti i regali e avete catalogato già tutti i vostri libri, allora vi consiglio un bell’articolo su LibraryThing pubblicato su ApogeOnline da Eleonora.

    Buona catalogazione e buone feste a tutti voi!

    … and happy holidays to all the other thingambrarians in the world too!

    Labels: italy

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    • Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

    Design a Logo, Win Some Goodies!

    Another day, another contest.

    We’re looking for a logo to use with our new Legacy Library spin-off project, Libraries of Early America. Very ambitiously, we intend to LT-catalog all known American libraries from before c. 1825 (you’d be amazed at how many there are). We’re focusing on individual and family libraries for the time being, but may look to expand that in the future.

    Wanted: Basic but elegant Libraries of Early America logo design for use on LibraryThing pages, an eventual LEA portal site (to feature essays, digitized book catalogs, &c.) and elsewhere. I’ll leave it open-ended from there – let your imaginations run wild!

    Reward: Tim’s offered up a lifetime membership to LT, an LT t-shirt, and a Cue-Cat, and we’ll also send along one of Monticello’s great Thomas Jefferson library mugs to the winning entrant.

    How to Enter: Send your entry (as URL or image file) to me at jbdibbell at gmail dot com by, oh, let’s say 15 October. I’ll circulate them to other interested parties and we’ll pick a winner shortly thereafter. Tim’s standard fine print (“Our decision is final, incontestable, irreversible and completely dictatorial”) applies. Any questions or clarifications, just ask.

    Labels: legacies

    posted by LibraryThing @9:07 am 1 Comment »
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    • Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

    The Legacies, One Year Out

    One year ago today, after a few days of discussion on Talk about the potential of adding Thomas Jefferson’s major library to LT, the I See Dead People’s Books group was formed, marking the beginning of what we now know as the Legacy Libraries project (here’s our very first Talk thread, wherein I make some very silly suggestions, just going to show how vitally important the collaborative process has been to this project).

    We’ve come a long way since last 3 September. More than 100 LT members working together have completed twenty-seven libraries; thirty-two more are currently in the process of being entered. That amounts, as of this morning, to 47,773 books – a pretty impressive year’s work by any standard.

    Since my last blog-update, some very interesting Legacy Libraries have been completed, including those of Mormon church founder Joseph Smith; Thomas Jefferson’s childhood friend Dabney Carr; authors Theodore Dreiser (left), Robert E. Howard, and Charles Lamb (below right); and English scientist/theologian/historian/educator Joseph Priestley (above right).

    The Legacy projects have also begun to attract some publicity and media attention, which is always welcome in that it draws more focus not only to the importance of these libraries but also to the value of LT in making these collections possible. I and several other members were interviewed for a piece in this month’s Fine Books & Collections magazine (on newsstands now) and on Monday morning I spoke with Clare Graves of the BBC Scotland program “Book Talk” about the projects (you can listen here for the next few days; we’re in the first fifteen-minute segment).

    Here’s to many more years and many more libraries – onward and upward! As always, if you’re interested in helping out on a library or would like to start one for your favorite historical reader, stop by and jump in.

    Labels: legacies

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    • Monday, July 28th, 2008

    Legacy Libraries: Call for Volunteers

    As LT’s Legacy Libraries project continues to expand in scope (21 libraries have now been completed, with 27 more underway) and visibility (see Tim’s blog-post from Wednesday and this Talk thread), we’re always looking for a few good volunteers to assist in the various cataloging efforts. One of the most impressive things about these projects is the way people have come together to bring these fascinating collections into LT, creating a vibrant bibliosphere by making connections between books and their readers across time and space in new and really exciting ways.

    There are a wide variety of open projects that could use some assistance, which I’ve listed below with contact info for the applicable ‘project managers.’ If you’d like to help out with any project, drop them (or me) a profile-message and we’ll provide you with all the necessary background and info. You can be as active as you like, there’s no need for a major time commitment (unless you’re so inclined, of course!).

    Benjamin Franklin – See the LT group; contact Katya0133 or pdxwoman.
    Carl Sandburg – Contact KCGordon.
    Sir Walter Scott – Contact thorold.
    B.H. Liddell-Hart – Contact jmnlman or donogh.
    W.B. Yeats – See this Talk thread.
    Theodore Dreiser – Contact brandonw.
    John Dee – Contact jbd1.
    Willa Cather – See the LT group.
    William Congreve – See this Talk thread; contact prosfilaes.

    Even beyond these, there are a small number of projects which are currently quiet; if you’re interested in picking up where others left off, contact me and we’ll get that set up.

    Anyone should also feel free to add to the list of proposed libraries on the project wiki, and if you’re interested in starting a project, just follow the steps outlined in the Cataloging Guide or contact me for additional info on getting underway.

    Back in May, in preparation for writing an article about the Legacies projects, I asked the members of the ISDPB group “What’s your motivation?” All of the responses were great, but my favorite came from jjlong, who said in part “I do feel like I’m contributing to something lasting…. sometime, somewhere, someone will want to know – out of scholarly, or personal, interest – what poets John Muir read, which Spanish Civil War books Hemingway owned, what Adams read in French. Used to be you’d have to trek to a library in Boston or Washington or London, or try to run down a copy of, say, Millicent Sowerby’s book; we’re making this information available to anyone, anywhere – and, more importantly, in an easily searchable and browsable form, filled with links, statistics, covers, author info (thanks to LT).”

    Couldn’t say it better myself. But don’t take our word for it – jump in and see for yourself!

    Labels: legacy libraries

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    • Friday, May 16th, 2008

    Two More Legacies Finished

    The ever-growing pantheon of Legacy Libraries now includes two new members.

    LTers Larxol and moibibliomaniac have cataloged the library of Samuel Johnson from the 1784 sale catalogue of his books (which, while neither complete nor accurate, is the best list available of the good Doctor’s library in his later years). Not surprisingly, Johnson shares many of his 748 books with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams (168 and 63 books respectively). The overlaps are endlessly fascinating, I think.

    My own latest and long-running project has been the library of the Mather Family. This collection was accumulated by (and then dispersed among) members of several Mather generations, from patriarch Richard down through several of his great-grandsons. So far as I’ve been able to tell, this is the first time this collection has been put together in one place (a 1910 bibliography included a fair portion of the books, but not all of them; I’ve tracked down all the ones I can find, but I’m sure there are more out there squirreled away in other libraries, so I’ll be on the lookout for additions. I’ve written a (probably much too) lengthy introduction to collection on the Mather Family profile page, and if you’re so inclined have posted a few more of my own musings on this library here.

    As always, anyone is welcome to participate in the Legacy projects (or start your own!). Stop by anytime.

    Labels: legacies

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    • Friday, April 11th, 2008

    Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale (SBN) – Italian National Library Service

    Cari utenti di LibraryThing.it, abbiamo appena aggiunto* una nuova fonte per la catalogazione di libri italiani, l’OPAC del Servizio Bibliografico Nazionale (SBN), una rete di oltre 3200 biblioteche. Lo trovate tra le fonti italiane sotto il suo nome inglese: Italian National Library Service.
    Buona catalogazione a tutti!

    Casey just announced 669 cataloging sources few days ago, but now we have just reached 681 sources! Among the new sources there’s also the Italian National Library Service.

    * Si, ci abbiamo messo un po’, ma c’era un bug che non riuscivamo a risolvere. Un grazie speciale a Casey che ha sopportato tutte le mie lamentele in nome della community italiana e alla fine ha trovato la soluzione!

    Photo credit: “Italy!…Here We Come!” photo by Flikr user Hvnly, used under a CC-Attribution license

    Labels: italy, new libraries, z39.50

    posted by LibraryThing @10:18 am 0 Comments »
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    • Friday, April 4th, 2008

    What Books Do You Share with Hemingway?

    Some updates from the Legacy Libraries front: yesterday saw the completion of the largest LT-Legacy catalog to date, that of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway’s library (compiled by Dr. James D. Brasch and Dr. Joseph Sigman of McMaster University, and provided online [PDF] through Boston’s John F. Kennedy Library) included more than 7,000 titles (7,411 to be exact). A small team of dedicated Thingambrarians has been entering them since 4 January: many thanks to nperrin, who initiated the project; spookykitten (who added about 2,450 books); christiguc (2,350); Rullakartiina (1,350); and jjlong (1,200). Amazing work for a three-month period!

    You can read more about the Hemingway effort at this talk thread; they’re looking for tagging assistance and offer some suggestions for where to read more about Hemingway and his books. It’s a fascinating and very wide-ranging collection, so if you have some time to browse through it, do.

    Much removed from Hemingway’s library (so far removed, in fact, that they share no books at all) is the library of British scientist James Smithson (1765-1829), the man responsible for the creation of the Smithsonian Institution. His books were included in the bequest he made to the United States, and they now reside in the vault of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries’ Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History (digital gateway). There are currently 113 titles in the catalog; a few more will follow (I’m told that eight more books from Smithson’s library were recently found in the Library of Congress and are now making their way back to the Smithsonian).

    I worked with the Smithsonian’s Martin Kalfatovic and Suzanne Pilsk on this project, and Martin has a post up on the SI blog about the addition of Smithson’s library. As one might expect, most of the books in Smithson’s collection are scientific tracts, but the catalog also includes some cookbooks, travel accounts, reference works, &c.

    Hemingway and Smithson have been added to the “Overlap with Legacy Libraries” section of your stats page (introduced here).

    We’ve also been continuing to enhance John Adams’ LT catalog since its unveiling; through the wonderful assistance of Boston Public Library staff we’ve been able to make transcriptions of much of John Adams’ fascinating marginalia widely available for the first time (see what he thought, for example, of Mary Wollstonecraft’s An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution) – his copy of the book contains more than 10,000 words written in the margins! I’ve also been adding comments from JA’s diary and other writings about specific authors or works; that’s going to be an ongoing process, but it’s at least underway.

    You can keep track of progress on the various Legacy projects by clicking here.

    [Update: Thingamabrarian spookykitten reports that the cataloging of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s library (322 books now held at Princeton) has also been completed. So you can now satisfy your curiosity and see how many books Fitzgerald and Hemingway share.]

    Labels: dead people, john adams, legacies, special libraries

    posted by LibraryThing @2:09 pm 1 Comment »
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    • Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

    We’ve added Paul Giamatti’s library!

    LibraryThing has added the library of John Adams, the second president of the United States, played by Paul Giamatti in the upcoming (March 16) HBO miniseries John Adams.*

    We’ve also added a new team member, Jeremy Dibbell (jbd1), the motive force behind the I See Dead People[‘s Books] group, dedicated to answering the question “What books do I share with Marie Antoinette and Tupac Shakur?” Jeremy, who works at the Massachusetts Historical Society, has become a “historical consultant” to LibraryThing. It’s an unpaid job, but signals our support for his work. If he can get some people to talk about topics like this, or needs airfare to deliver a talk on it, we’ll help out. The rest of this blog post is by Jeremy…

    I am pleased to announce the LibraryThing debut of the library of John Adams, the second president of the United States. Thanks to the staff at the Boston Public Library we were able to batch-import** the books from John Adams‘ personal collection, now housed at the BPL.

    I’m not quite finished enhancing the records … with notes, reviews, tags, transcriptions of Adams’ marginalia and links to digital scans of the Adams books*** … but since this week is a big one for John Adams fans we wanted to announce the catalog even if it’s not entirely operational yet. Call it the beta version.

    In case you’re not up on your Adams events calendar, this coming Sunday (16 March) is the premiere of the mini-series based on David McCullough’s John Adams, with Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney starring as John and Abigail. HBO has arranged a tie-in marketing campaign with the US Postal Service which is highlighted at poweroftheletter.com: among other things, first class letters will be postmarked with a special cancellation in March containing a 1765 quote from JA: “Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.” One of my favorite Adams lines, and entirely appropriate not only for the mail, but also for our efforts here.

    Beyond the virtual, there are two upcoming two physical exhibits of Adams letters and other manuscript materials. At the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston****, “John Adams: A Life in Letters” will be open to the public from 8 March through 31 (Monday through Saturday, 1-4 p.m.). And at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, “My Dearest Friend” will run from 5-30 April in the Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library.

    John Adams read widely, and was famous for responding (sometimes quite sharply) to the texts as he read them (check out his “40 Most Heavily Annotated Books“). I’m really delighted that we’ve been able to work out a way (using WikiThing) to make his transcribed annotations available – they’re wonderful to read, and complement the digital scans of the books very nicely.

    Plus, as an added bonus, you can compare Jefferson and Adams’ libraries (here) and see the impressive number of works our second and third presidents (also probably two of the best-read) had in common. Right now it’s at 218, but that number is sure to creep upward as more combinations are made.

    Much more to do, so I’m going to get back to editing. Stop by and browse awhile when you have a chance, and stay tuned: the BPL recently announced plans to take their excellent “John Adams Unbound” exhibit on the road, so in case you missed it in Boston you may still get a chance to see the show.

    *Giamatti as John Adams is growing on me. But nothing will beat his performance in Sideways. [Tim]
    **Incidentally, we’ll be offering batch-importing of MARC records to all members soon. [Tim]
    *** You’ll also see some books currently in the catalog published after President Adams died in 1826. Those were added by his descendants, and are in the process of being removed from his LT catalog. Records for those books will remain available through the BPL’s John Adams Library site.
    **** Where I am an Assistant Reference Librarian in “real life.”

    Labels: dead people, jeremy dibbell, john adams, offbeat, paul giamatti

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    • Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

    12 fonti italiane! (12 Italian sources!)

    I have been cataloging my Italian books manually for months, but for the joy of all Italian readers, this is finally over! We’ve just added 12 new Italian sources!

    It’s really no fun at all to enter book data field by field for hundreds of books, so I am sure all Italian Thingamabrarians will love the new sources! I’m personally really looking forward to cataloging books by scanning the ISBNs with my lovely CueCat!Anyway, this is a good news for all users: among the 12 new sources there’s the Vatican Library, which owns books in a number of languages, and the European University Institute Library in Florence, with a lot of books on social sciences and European studies in English.

    Now, I know this is an English speaking blog, but I’m sure (well, I hope!) Tim and Abby wouldn’t mind some Italian … so, if you wanna read further and you’re not Italian, well, Babelfish is just one click away!

    Da quando poco più di un anno fa LibraryThing è stato tradotto in italiano (e in più di 20 altre lingue) dagli utenti di LibraryThing (la pagina traduzioni è qui, se vuoi dare il tuo contributo!), il numero di utenti italiani è cresciuto insieme alle lamentele per la mancanza di una fonte di catalogazione 😉

    Biblioteche e non solo. Finalmente siamo in grado di aggiungere non una, ma ben 12 nuove fonti di catalogazione! Oltre a 11 biblioteche* abbiamo aggiunto anche una libreria online di Roma, DEAstore, perfetta per libri di recente pubblicazione. Non offre gli stessi dati delle biblioteche, ma ha delle copertine fantastiche!

    Gruppi.     LibraryThing in inglese (e in alcune altre lingue) ha centinaia di gruppi di discussione molto attivi. I gruppi italiani non sono molto vivaci**, ma forse con qualche utente un più, possiamo rianimarli. Già, ma dove li troviamo altri utenti italiani? Ecco un piccolo incentivo!

    Invita i tuoi amici e ricevi un account gratuito per te e per un tuo amico! Dal proprio profilo è possibile invitare i propri amici su LibraryThing. Non perdere tempo, regaliamo un account annuale per te e per un amico ai primi 15 che invitano un amico che cataloga almeno 15 libri!***
    Non sei riuscito a convincere nessuno?! Prova a mostrare la visita guidata a LibraryThing.

    Ma da quando Tim ha imparato l’italiano?! Beh, Tim non ha imparato l’italiano 😉 Da alcuni mesi LibraryThing ha un italiano nel suo team. Domande, dubbi, bugs? Scrivetemi! Nel frattempo, buona catalogazione a tutti!

    * A parte il catalogo delle biblioteche Liguri, le altre nuove fonti sono biblioteche universitarie o di centri di ricerca. Se qualcuno conosce biblioteche italiane che supportano il formato Z39.50, possiamo cercare di aggiungerle. Scrivetemi!
    ** Adesso che abbiamo delle fonti di catalogazione, di cosa parleremo nei gruppi?!
    *** Mandate il nome del vostro account e dell’account del vostro amico a giovannilibrarything.comPhoto credit: “Italian flag flying on top of Monte Sighignola” photo by Flikr user ovuigner, used under a CC-Attribution license.

    Labels: italy, new feature, new features, new libraries

    posted by LibraryThing @5:31 am 0 Comments »
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