Archive for the ‘1’ Category

Friday, January 21st, 2011

Common Knowledge milestone and feature

Some time last night LibraryThing Common Knowledge hit three million edits.

Common Knowledge, introduced back in 2007, is LibraryThing’s “social cataloging” experiment—a fielded wiki for all the data that you can’t find elsewhere.

The three-millionth edit was made by starlightgenie, who marked Texas Ranger Takes A Bride to the Western Weddings series. starlightgenie, want a t-shirt?

I recently introduced two features that make Common Knowledge better. Inter-language visibility allows members to see what members using non-English version of LibraryThing have entered into Common Knowledge, and even to edit one language’s Common Knowledge within another site. “Borrowing” data between languages shows Common Knowledge across languages, with a notice, and allows you to edit the entry to bring it into your language’s Common Knowledge. Together, they solve a long-standing social problem with Common Knowledge–how to make sure information flowed easily, but appropriately across LibraryThing’s many sites.

Here’s a screenshot the new features:

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Monday, January 10th, 2011

Free Books! January ER Batch is Up!

The January 2011 batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We’ve got 76 books this month, and a grand total of 1893 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 Friday, January 28th at 6PM EST.

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

HarperCollins Childrens Books Henry Holt and Company Canongate Books
Kregel Publications Lake Claremont Press Chronicle Books
Harper Paperbacks Gefen Publishing House Penguin
WaterBrook Press New American Library Crossway
The Permanent Press Bloomsbury Orca Book Publishers
Hyperion and Voice Double Day Religion Candlewick Press
Taylor Trade Publishing Ballantine Books St. Martin’s Griffin
Zed Books Active Spud Press Rockin SR Publishing
Human Kinetics The People Builders BookViewCafe
St. Martin’s Press Nolo Swank Books
Small Beer Press Riverhead Books Spiegel & Grau
Oxford University Press C. Hurst & Co Publishers Mulholland Books
Frog Legs Ink Hungry Goat Press

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Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

LibraryThing meetup at the National Book Festival

Book Festival posterIt’s actually the 5th Annual BookCrossing/LibraryThing Meet-Up at The National Book Festival, 2010, in Washington, DC but that makes for a long blog post title. If you’re interested in socializing with other LibraryThing and Bookcrossing members while you’re at the National Book Festival, this is your chance. The festival is free, and there will be many many authors to see.

Read more about the meet-up here in the Talk group.

Date: Saturday, September 25, 2010
Time: 2-3 pm (the festival runs from 10 AM – 5 PM)
Place: Bottom right side of the steps leading to the Museum of Natural History (the domed building).
What: We gather informally for an hour to chat and get to know one another. Bookcrossing will be giving away free books. Help yourself to any books that you wish to take home. Just look for the yellow Bookcrossing wagon.
Who: Any member of LibraryThing OR Bookcrossing and their family and friends are invited. Wear something that identifies you as a LibraryThinger or Bookcrosser.

Thanks to Squeakychu for organizing!

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Sunday, August 15th, 2010

Your publishers

I’ve pushed a Stats/Memes page that shows how your books stack up against the publishers in LibraryThing for Publishers.

It shows all your publishers, with the collections they’re in, and the number.

See Yours: http://www.librarything.com/profile/MEMBERNAME/stats/publishers
Mine: http://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding/stats/publishers

The main publisher page also has a “all” vs. “yours” toggle, so you can see the information there instead.

More coming on Monday!

Talk about this here.

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Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

Groups show connections

Two small changes: Group pages now show who among your friends and other connections are in the group. We’ve also restored group member-counts. Both look forward to a restored group-Zeitgeist.

Discuss here.

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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.

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Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

Congratulations to Mike and Rebecca

Congratulations to LibraryThing programmer Mike Bannister and his bride Rebecca Kilkenny Mullins—we wish you many joyful years together!

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Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

Inauguration at the LibraryThing offices


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Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

LibraryThing server eaten by moose

Sorry. Made you look…

Find LibraryThing a Maine employee, please!

We’re gonna keep collections hostage until we get a warm body in an uncomfortable chair over here.

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Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

News you can… discuss

Big news today—Amazon now owns 100% of our rival and bête noire, Shelfari.

With a lot to do today, I don’t have time to blog-ify it, but you can read about it on Talk and talk back. We’ve always relied on members to direct the site. We could use your advice now more than ever!

Here’s the post on Talk: http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=44126

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