Archive for the ‘references’ Category

Friday, May 18th, 2012

Free accounts for bookseller reference libraries!

A good reference library is a must-have for any bookseller, but having a wide range of useful reference sources at hand is particularly necessary for the booksellers who operate at the used/rare/antiquarian end of the spectrum. If you’ve ever had a chance to browse through a really good bookseller reference library, you’ll know immediately what I’m talking about (and, like me, you’ve probably had to be practically dragged away from the shelves).

Brooke Palmieri, a bookseller at Sokol Books, Ltd. in London (read a profile of Brooke from the Fine Books Blog’s “Bright Young Things” series here, or check out her excellent blog, 8vo), has been cataloging Sokol’s reference library on LibraryThing (Sokol_Books_Ltd), and that got me thinking about ways we might be able to encourage other booksellers to use LibraryThing for their reference collections. A good first step: free accounts for everyone!

So, as of today, we’re offering free lifetime LibraryThing memberships to booksellers who are members of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association (ABA), Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA) or the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB)!*

Just open an organizational account on LibraryThing and email me (jeremy@librarything.com) with the username you choose, and I’ll upgrade it to lifetime status. You commit to adding your reference library to LibraryThing. It doesn’t have to be immediately, of course; booksellers are some of the busiest people I know! You’ll have a useful catalog of your reference books, and the world will be able to (virtually) browse your shelves. And if you want a hand cataloging, let me know that too – we can almost certainly pull together a merry band of LibraryThing volunteers to come help sometime (and, ahem, do some shopping too!).

Huge thanks to Brooke for providing the impetus for this, and for the picture (a portion of the Sokol Books collection). She noted on Twitter this morning that the reason she started cataloging on LT was that the library “isn’t consistently organized & I when I first started working I needed to learn its contents FAST. I have heard horror stories of firms owning multiple copies of expensive bibliographies because their libraries are disorganized … so cataloguing a ref library saves 1) time 2) money 3) teaching other employees what you have committed to muscle memory.” If we can help at all with any of that, we’re happy to!

Mmm, bookstores. For more ways to use LT, see our How Bookstores Can Use LibraryThing page.

* If you’re a bookseller and not a member of those assocations, but have a large reference library you want to catalog on LibraryThing, just email me; we’ll make it work.

Labels: booksellers, bookstores, references

posted by Jeremy @9:50 am 4 Comments »
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    • Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

    The Books of Wikipedia

    UPDATE: I’m going to take another swipe at the data here. I’ve found too many places where it looks like citations aren’t registering. I’ll update when I can. Meanwhile, I’m moving the Secret Santa post to the top again. (Tim)

    I’ve added a new “References” section to work pages, and within that a list of the Wikipedia articles that cite the work.

    This feature comes from a complete parse of the English Wikipedia data dump, looking for citations and other references to books.

    All told, the data covers 251,911 pages and includes 540,000 citations. They cover some 227,852 works. This is a marked improvement over 2007, when a similar effort found citations to LibraryThing works on only 90,136 pages. It’s not perfect. I don’t try to capture non-ISBN references in running text.* But it’s interesting.** Come talk about it here.

    Here are the top 100 books:

    Top 100 Most-Frequenty Cited Books in the English Wikipedia
    1. 2,122 Guinness World Records: British Hit Singles and Albums
    2. 1,313 Andrews’ Diseases of the Skin: Clinical Dermatology (James, Andrew’s Disease of the Skin)
    3. 1,231 Air Force Combat Units of World War II
    4. 1,184 Jane’s encyclopedia of aviation
    5. 839 British parliamentary election results, 1918-1949
    6. 764 The Ship of the Line: The Development of the Battlefleet, 1650-1850 (The Ship of the line)
    7. 603 Handbook of British Chronology (Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, Volume 2)
    8. 603 Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1860-1905
    9. 591 The science-fantasy publishers: A critical and bibliographic history
    10. 560 Civil War High Commands
    11. 539 Wrestling Title Histories
    12. 514 A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament (2 volumes)
    13. 504 The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature
    14. 464 The Dinosauria
    15. 463 The DC Comics Encyclopedia, Updated and Expanded Edition
    16. 460 The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem
    17. 452 The Canadian directory of Parliament, 1867-1967
    18. 442 All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948
    19. 419 Air Force combat wings : lineage and honors histories, 1947-1977
    20. 415 The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy Through 1968; Volume 1: Who’s Who A-L
    21. 414 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
    22. 406 Fields of Praise: Official History of the Welsh Rugby Union, 1881-1981
    23. 403 Birmingham City
    24. 398 The New Grove Dictionary of Opera : A-D
    25. 377 Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments
    26. 371 Fitzpatrick’s Dermatology In General Medicine (Two Vol. Set)
    27. 362 NFL 2001 Record and Fact Book
    28. 356 The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Animals: A Comprehensive Color Guide to Over 500 Specie
    29. 348 The Pimlico Chronology of British History: From 250, 000 BC to the Present Day
    30. 347 Michigan Place Names (Great Lakes Books)
    31. 345 The Directory of Railway Stations: Details Every Public and Private Passenger Station, Halt, Platform and Stopping Place
    32. 342 The Oxford Companion to Wine, 3rd Edition
    33. 341 Collins Guide to the Sea Fishes of New Zealand
    34. 334 The Book of Sydney Suburbs
    35. 331 The Men Who Made Gillingham Football Club
    36. 331 Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775-1990: Major Combatants
    37. 315 Oregon Geographic Names
    38. 305 日本写真家事典―東京都写真美術館所蔵作家 (東京都写真美術館叢書)
    39. 296 U.S. Submarines Through 1945: An Illustrated Design History
    40. 294 Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns
    41. 289 The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy Through 1968: A Bibliographic Survey of the Fields of Science Fiction, F
    42. 281 Reed New Zealand Atlas
    43. 277 Music in the Renaissance
    44. 277 Ohio Atlas and Gazetteer (Atlas and Gazetteer)
    45. 273 Enzyklopädie des deutschen Ligafußballs 7. Vereinslexikon
    46. 271 The Text of the New Testament an Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual
    47. 268 Blackpool (Complete Record)
    48. 266 The PFA Premier & Football League players’ records, 1946-2005
    49. 261 The Oxford Companion to Chess
    50. 259 Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
    51. 256 A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica (Comstock Book)
    52. 251 Saints!: Complete Record of Southampton Football Club, 1885-1987
    53. 247 Cassell’s Chronology of World History: Dates, Events and Ideas That Made History
    54. 247 The Book of Golden Discs
    55. 243 Squadrons of the Royal Air Force and Commonwealth, 1918-88
    56. 236 Retreat to the Reich: The German Defeat in France, 1944
    57. 236 RAF Squadrons: A Comprehensive Record of the Movement and Equipment of All RAF Squadrons and Their Antecedents Since 191
    58. 231 Australian Chart Book 1970-1992
    59. 231 The Phoenix Book of International Rugby Records
    60. 228 Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1945
    61. 224 US Air Force Air Power Directory
    62. 222 Handbook of Inorganic Chemicals
    63. 221 Rough Guide to World Music Volume Two: Latin and North America, the Caribbean, Asia & the Pacific (Rough Guide Music Gui
    64. 219 In the Nick of Time: Motion Picture Sound Serials
    65. 215 A Guide to the Birds of Trinidad and Tobago
    66. 212 Encyclopedia of Fishes, Second Edition (Natural World)
    67. 208 The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World
    68. 205 The Kentucky Encyclopedia
    69. 205 Arsenal Who’s Who
    70. 205 Guia de Catalunya. Tots els pobles i totes les comarques
    71. 204 Armor Battles of the Waffen SS, 1943-45 (Stackpole Military History Series)
    72. 203 Sixty Years of Arkham House: A History and Bibliography
    73. 203 Indie Hits: The Complete UK Independent Charts 1980-1989
    74. 201 The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics
    75. 201 The geographic atlas of New Zealand
    76. 201 The International Rugby Championship 1883-1983
    77. 200 The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae (Virgin Encyclopedias of Popular Music)
    78. 199 Arkham House Books: A Collector’s Guide
    79. 198 Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft
    80. 196 Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships: 1906-1921 (Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, Vol 2)
    81. 195 The fighting ships of the Rising Sun: The drama of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1895-1945
    82. 192 Economics: Principles in Action
    83. 191 New RHS Dictionary of Gardening
    84. 190 Fungal Families of the World (Cabi Publishing)
    85. 189 The Vertigo Encyclopedia
    86. 188 Dermatology: 2-Volume Set
    87. 187 The National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota: A Guide (Minnesota)
    88. 187 Minding the House: A Biographical Guide to Prince Edward Island MLAs, 1873-1993
    89. 186 Domesday Book: A Complete Translation (Alecto Historical Editions)
    90. 186 The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile (3 Vol Set)
    91. 185 Mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern : die höchstdekorierten Soldaten des Zweiten Weltkrieges
    92. 184 The Mountains of England and Wales, Volume 1: Wales
    93. 183 The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld
    94. 183 The Oxford Dictionary of Opera
    95. 179 Generals in Blue Lives of the Union Commanders: Lives of the Union Commanders
    96. 178 The Arkham House Companion: Fifty Years of Arkham House : A Bibliographical History and Collector’s Price Guide to Arkha
    97. 177 David and Charles Book of Castles
    98. 175 Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music (Recent Releases)
    99. 174 The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family
    100. 171 Hot Dance/Disco 1974-2003
    Source: LibraryThing.com

    Here’s the table above, in selectable form, in case you want to put it on your blog:

    *The parse used ISBNs, OCLC and LCCN numbers and title/author combinations, in both running text (for ISBNs) and citations. In 2007, I used titles and authors in running text. But this produces some false positives and, basically, would have tied up a server for a week.
    **I don’t want to start a fight, but I think the winners suggest alarming unevenness. They look like special cases—a bunch of devotees going citation-mad. While everyone knows Wikipedia is driven by passion, the theory is that large numbers and diverse viewpoints tamp down some of the excesses there. That said, I am going to take another crack at the data, hoping some of these effects diminish.

    Labels: new features, references, wikipedia

    posted by Tim @11:30 pm 1 Comment »
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