Archive for the ‘librarything for libraries’ Category

Thursday, June 27th, 2013

Book Display Widgets in Facebook

This new feature allows you to use our fantastic and versatile Book Display Widgets within Facebook. Add a Book Display Widget tab to your library’s Facebook page to easily show off new books, staff picks, featured collections, and more.

Check it out. Give it a try on our fake library Facebook page, here. If this were connected to a real library, clicking on a book would open to that item’s bib page in the catalog.

Set it up. If you already subscribe to Book Display Widgets, this is a free addition! Just read here for how to set up widgets on your library’s Facebook page. On that same page you’ll see a link to a screencast to help you get set up.

Learn more. Interested in Book Display Widgets for your library? Email me (abby@librarything.com) with any questions about this or any of the LibraryThing for Libraries products. To subscribe, contact Peder Christensen at Bowker—toll-free at 877-340-2400 or email Peder.Christensen@bowker.com.

Labels: Book Display Widgets, librarything for libraries

posted by Abby @11:00 am Comments Off on Book Display Widgets in Facebook
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    • Monday, April 8th, 2013

    Reviews Enhancement with Social Media Integration

    We are very pleased to announce an upgrade to our LibraryThing for Libraries Reviews Enhancement—social media integration.

    The Reviews Enhancement lets your patrons rate and review items directly within your catalog. But it also comes loaded with reviews to start! You can share reviews with over 200 libraries who also use the service and draw from over 950,000 hand-vetted user reviews written by LibraryThing.com members. But we’re constantly improving, and we’ve just released the following new features!

    Social media integration

    • Sign in with Facebook or Twitter. Your patrons can now login to write reviews in your catalog using their Facebook or Twitter accounts, or they can continue to use the “reviews account” as usual. They will also be able to link an existing reviews account to their Twitter or Facebook login, for easy access in the future. (Simply log into an existing reviews account, click to account settings, and then connect.)
    • Post reviews to Facebook and Twitter. Once a patron’s reviews account is linked, they also have the ability to tweet the review they just wrote in your catalog, and to post it to Facebook. This is great for everyone. The patron gets to show their friends what they’re reading at the library they love—and your library gets fantastic visibility!

    The links from Facebook and Twitter drive people back into your catalog, to discover even more of your collection.

    Rating without reviewing

    Just to sweeten the pot, we’ve added one more feature in here: the ability to rate a book with stars without having to write a review. Some people prefer to just rate, and we’ve made that possible.

    How to get it

    If your library currently subscribes to the Reviews Enhancement, and you want to make sure your patrons can take advantage of these improvements, you have to do… nothing, unless you want to turn social media integration off! If you’d like to disable this, just log into your LibraryThing for Libraries admin account, and go to the Configuration > Reviews page. At the bottom, you’ll see an option to disable social media integration. Toggle that, and the ability to sign in with and post to Twitter and Facebook will disappear from your catalog.

    Learn more. If you’d like to subscribe to Review Enhancements, get a free trial, or just learn more: Email me (abby@librarything.com). To subscribe, contact Peder Christensen at Bowker—toll-free at 877-340-2400 or email Peder.Christensen@bowker.com.

    Come see us at CIL. Tim and I (Abby) are at the Computers in Libraries conference in Washington DC this week—stop by the exhibit hall to see us!

    Labels: facebook, librarything for libraries, ltfl, reviews, social media, twitter

    posted by Abby @10:22 am Comments Off on Reviews Enhancement with Social Media Integration
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    • Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013

    Improvements to Book Display Widgets

    We’ve had a fantastic response to our newest LibraryThing for Libraries product, Book Display Widgets. Book Display Widgets were envisioned as a way for libraries to create virtual book displays—to show off specific collections and to highlight particular titles.  Importantly, we also wanted Book Display Widgets to be easy for libraries to create and to update.

    And we want to make it even better! We’ve just implemented several new features:

    Multi-widgets

    (Note: This is a sample widget. If you were using this in a real library, then each book would link to the book record in the catalog when clicked.)

    Our new multi-widget format saves on space by giving you the ability to showcase multiple widgets in one area. Just click header titles to switch between widgets.

    Our example above is an assorted collection of types of widgets, but the possibilities are endless. You can imagine this being useful for showing a collection of widgets with new books, new DVDs, new children’s books, etc. Or a multi-widget that displays several different widgets full of staff picks. Or one that shows off all the different nominees for various book awards being chosen this month. Book Display Widgets provide the structure for anything you can think up!

    Vertical display

    This new vertical display option is great for use on pages with side columns that you want to populate—like on LibGuides, for example.

    Two display types now offer the vertical option—carousel and scrolling. We’ve also added in a shelf or no-shelf option for the carousel display (previously it was only available with a shelf background).

    Learn more

    We’ve made a short (less than a minute, I promise) video, showing how truly easy it is to create a widget.

    See our Showcase page for sample widgets in each display style, and to get inspiration.

    What do you think? Let us know if you have any other suggestions (email abby@librarything.com), we’re always open to adding and improving!

    Labels: Book Display Widgets, librarything for libraries, ltfl

    posted by Abby @1:34 pm Comments Off on Improvements to Book Display Widgets
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    • Wednesday, February 13th, 2013

    LTFL adds an Australian server!

    For a company based in the United States, LibraryThing for Libraries has a surprisingly large number of library customers in Australia and New Zealand. For months we’ve been working on our infastructure to ensure that our data loads as fast as possible in those catalogues on the other side of the world. We’re pleased to announce that we’ve brought live our first server located just outside of Sydney, Australia!

    This change means that the LibraryThing for Libraries data won’t have to travel around the world, so it will load considerably faster in each catalogue. Light can travel around the world 7.5 times in a second. But even 133 milliseconds isn’t nothing, and with all the other stuff that goes on, the internet never goes that fast. Sydney may not be right next door to all our Australian libraries, but it’s a lot closer than Boston, Massachusetts.(1)

    Of the libraries that have switched to the Australian server so far, we’re seeing speed increases of about 100%—that is, if you’re in Australia, LibraryThing for Libraries’ load time has been cut in half! (Note that because LibraryThing for Libraries loads from your browser, if you hit these libraries from the US, you’ll find them slower—slow like Australia used to be.)

    Currently the Australian server is running the catalogue enrichment (Ratings and reviews, Tags, Similar Books, Series, Awards, Shelf Browse, Stack Map, Other Editions, and Lexile Measures.), BookPsychic, and our new Book Display Widgets.

    Up next, we’ll be working on moving libraries on Library Anywhere, our mobile product, over to the new server!

    Let me know if your library (in Australia or New Zealand) subscribes to LTFL and needs assistance in moving to the new server. Email abby@librarything.com.

    1. For now we’re going to hold off on a “LibraryThing Europe” server. The connections from the East Coast to Europe are very fast, and Europe is closer, so Europeans experience only lag by a hundred milliseconds or so.

    Labels: australia, librarything for libraries

    posted by Abby @6:02 pm 2 Comments »
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    • Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013

    Book Display Widgets from LibraryThing for Libraries

    We’re pleased to launch our newest LibraryThing for Libraries product—Book Display Widgets!

    Book Display Widgets let you create virtual book displays for your library’s homepage, catalog, blog, or wherever you want to show off some titles! We’ve included a few examples here, but check out the Showcase page for more widgets in action.

    New fiction titles (in a dynamic grid)
    (Note: This is a sample widget. If you were using this in a real library,
    then each book would link to the book record in the catalog when clicked.)

    Book Display Widgets gives you the choice of four different display styles (dynamic grid, shelf browse, scrolling shelf, and 3-D carousel), and endless customization possibilities.

    You can feed your widgets all sorts of things, including:

    • Pre-populated data sources. Includes series, awards, tags and genres. We’re smart enough to match them up with your holdings, so you just enter a series name, a tag or genre and we figure out the best books to show.
    • Your holdings. Pick all holdings, new holdings, popular holdings or holdings within a certain call range.
    • Custom lists. Create your lists, hand-entered or drawn from an RSS feed or a web page that lists books.
    New York Times Bestsellers (in a 3-D carousel)
    (Note: This is a sample widget. If you were using this in a real library,
    then each book would link to the book record in the catalog when clicked.)

    We built this to be extremely flexible and customizable, so you can create a variety of different widgets, and use them to showcase whatever your library wants to focus on—Booker Prize Winners, National Reading Week, a collection of paranormal romance titles, or staff picks.

    See our Showcase page for sample widgets in each display style, and to get inspiration.

    Learn more. Email me (abby@librarything.com) with any questions about this or any of the LibraryThing for Libraries products. To subscribe, contact Peder Christensen at Bowker—toll-free at 877-340-2400 or email Peder.Christensen@bowker.com.

    See us in Seattle. LibraryThing will be at ALA Midwinter in Seattle later this week, showing off Book Display Widgets and everything else we do.

    Labels: Book Display Widgets, librarything for libraries

    posted by Abby @3:24 pm 4 Comments »
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    • Friday, January 18th, 2013

    ALA Midwinter in Seattle – Free Exhibit Passes!

    Kate and I will be heading to Seattle next week for ALA Midwinter. We’ll be setting up camp in booth 1108– just look for the giant inflatable giraffe if you can’t find us.

    Are you in Seattle, or nearby, and want to get into the exhibit hall for free? I can help! We have free exhibit passes to give out: Click here to register.

    The exhibit halls open Friday, January 25th at 5:30pm and close Monday the 28th at 2pm. So stop by our booth and say hi!

    We will also be showing off a brand new LibraryThing for Libraries product (Book Display Widgets!) and upgrades to other features… More detailed announcements coming, or stop by the booth for a preview.

    Labels: ALA midwinter, ALAMW13, Book Display Widgets, librarything for libraries

    posted by Abby @1:17 pm Comments Off on ALA Midwinter in Seattle – Free Exhibit Passes!
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    • Monday, June 18th, 2012

    Heading to ALA / free exhibits-only pass

    At the end of the week, Tim, Kate, and I are heading to Anaheim, CA for the American Library Association’s annual conference. We’ll be camped out at booth 1919 and at 1471 (in the “mobile pavilion”), so stop by and say hi. We have two big new enhancements to show off (stay tuned here for more details if you won’t be able to come see them in person), and a new inflatable animal (the rhino is sitting this show out). How can you resist?

    Want to attend? As an exhibitor, we get to give out free “Exhibits Only” passes to ALA. So if you’re nearby and want to come, this is your chance! Click here and follow the instructions—you have to register online. The pass gets you only into the exhibit hall, not the conference sessions.

    The exhibit halls open at 5:30pm on Friday the 22nd, hope to see you there!

    Labels: ala, ala anaheim, giraffe, librarything for libraries, rhinos

    posted by Abby @12:43 pm Comments Off on Heading to ALA / free exhibits-only pass
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    • Monday, June 18th, 2012

    800,000 reviews on LibraryThing for Libraries

    LibraryThing for Libraries just hit 800,000 professionally vetted reviews (812,839, to be precise!). We had been working through a backlog (we had hit 600,000 in April) and are now entirely caught up, which is great. We have between 3,000-4,000 new reviews to read and approve every week, so the number is ever growing, and you can be sure that new popular books will have reviews on them quickly.

    A question we get frequently is what does “vetted” mean? We—real live MLS-degreed librarians*—read the reviews submitted by LibraryThing members.** We remove reviews not written in English,*** remove reviews that consist of nothing but a link, and we automatically star out curse words. The rest, we read. We remove reviews that are credited to another source, or published elsewhere. We remove reviews that obviously aren’t reviews. We don’t judge grammar and punctuation too harshly, but if a review is so riddled with errors that it’s impossible to read, it goes. Much of the vetting process involves making judgement calls about whether it is useful, whether it is what someone would want to read when deciding to check out a book or not.

    On top of these reviews from LibraryThing, patrons at your library can write their own reviews (local reviews will always sort on top, so you see them first). Libraries that subscribe to the Reviews Enhancement from LibraryThing for Libraries can also display patrons reviews from other libraries that use the service, sharing the wealth.

    The Reviews enhancement is one of the easiest to add to your OPAC, and also comes with a widget that can be used to show off recent reviews written in your library.

    For more information, email me (abby@librarything.com). For ordering information, contact Peder Christensen at Bowker—877-340-2400 or Peder.Christensen@bowker.com.

    *This is who we are!
    **LibraryThing members must agree to share their reviews before we even consider them for inclusion.
    ***Though we automatically exclude non-English language reviews, libraries can now actually choose to include reviews in other languages! So German libraries can show reviews in German and those in English, if they desire.

    Labels: librarything for libraries, ltfl, LTFL Reviews

    posted by Abby @12:23 pm 3 Comments »
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    • Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

    LibraryThing at Computers in Libraries

    Tim and I are headed to DC this week for Computers in Libraries. We’ll be at booth #323, so stop by!

    We’ll be showing off our new custom branded Library Anywhere mobile apps, our newest addition to the LTFL enhancements, Stack Map, AND a sneak peek at a brand new feature, BookPsychic.

    Stop by to see any and everything!

    Also remember, we do webinars every Tuesday to show off both Library Anywhere and all the LibraryThing for Libraries enhancements for your library catalog (tags, similar books, other editions, series, awards, shelf browse, reviews, and Lexile measures)! Click here to register. On the Browse Meetings page, search for LibraryThing to see a listing of all upcoming webinars.

    Labels: BookPsychic, branded apps, CIL, CIL2012, library anywhere, librarything for libraries, ltfl

    posted by Abby @8:47 am 2 Comments »
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    • Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

    At PLA in Philly, sneak peek at new features!

    In Philadelphia for PLA? Stop by the LibraryThing booth! Kate and Tim are camped at booth number 2312

    We have some new improvements and features for both Library Anywhere and LibraryThing for Libraries to show off.

    SNEAK PEEK at BookPsychic
    BookPsychic is personalized recommendations for your patrons. The more they rate, the better their recommendations become! The more they discover, the more your collection circulates. BookPsychic will be available early Q2 2012.

    Click image above to view PDF handout

    New for Library Anywhere: Branded apps
    Get the power of Library Anywhere along with custom colors and branded apps downloadable under your library’s name in the app stores! Branded apps are a complete white label mobile solution—the app is yours alone, with no references to Library Anywhere or other libraries. Branded apps are available now—contact us for more information or to upgrade your existing Library Anywhere to a branded app!

    Click image above to view PDF handout

    Read about Library Anywhere and the rest of our LibraryThing for Libraries enhancements, including our newest addition—Stack Map, on the Library Thing for Libraries homepage.

    Stop by the booth at PLA to learn more, or email me (abby@librarything.com) at any time!

    Learn more
    Email me (abby@librarything.com) with any questions about this any of the LibraryThing for Libraries OPAC enhancements, or our mobile product, Library Anywhere! To subscribe, contact Peder Christensen at Bowker—toll-free at 877-340-2400 or email Peder.Christensen@bowker.com.

    Labels: app, BookPsychic, branded apps, library anywhere, librarything for libraries, ltfl, PLA, PLA12

    posted by Abby @4:07 pm Comments Off on At PLA in Philly, sneak peek at new features!
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