I know we've touched on this before, but how many library patrons are taking advantage of the ability to have access to their library account at home? You wonder what fun is that or what good will it do you. The thing I love, is the ability to add books to a wish list. I just don't have time to read all the books I want to. I can't put them all on hold when I see one I like, because they'll all come in just when I'm not ready. With your account, you can make any type of list you want - a "to read list" or a list of ones you've already read so you can remember and not get them again. All you have to do to get access to your account, is to ask the next time you are in at the library and we'll set you up. Come prepared with a user name and password.
You can also sign up for another site called LibraryThing any time you want from home. This site lets you keep track of what you have read, want to read, or invite friends to join and see what they are reading too. It will even help you catalog your own book collection! You can find that function on our homepage -then the library catalog and under "find a book" and then "Brigham City Reads - Online book discussion". I also use "GoodReads" which is the same type of site.
Is anyone out there reading our blog? How about commenting with the name of a book you are reading right now or one you thought was good? I'm reading "The Shack" by William P. Young and I'm not sure about it but I know lots of people who loved it - what about you?
We've noticed that a lot of you really like to know what our staff likes. You may not have the same reading tastes as everyone on staff, but some of you have gotten to know what certain staff members like to read and find that your tastes are very similar to theirs. Karen Kingsbury is one author who's been recommended by a few people on staff and now she's hard to keep on the shelves.
We have a set of display shelves just across from the circulation desk that are reserved for staff picks. Some times it's a bit challenging to keep these shelves full. The books usually move in a hurry once they make it to one of those shelves.
Every month we send out a book list that is made up of books staff members have recommended on the staff picks shelves next to the front desk. We make a lot of custom lists that we send out with new books on them or the library newsletter, but one of the most popular lists of all is the list of staff recommendations. This list is called "The Librarians' Bookshelf" and you can sign-up for it by clicking here.
Another place we have staff recommendations is on LibraryThing. On LibraryThing we maintain a a list of around 200 staff picks. You can take a look at the staff recommendations on LibraryThing by clicking here. The side column on our blog shows two book covers from this list and has a quick link to the entire list, you just have to click on "my library" and your browser will be sent to our list of book recommendations. You can also access this list by going to the "Find a Book" link on our main webpage. There we have a list of five books from the list that rotates book recommendations from our LibraryThing account.
So if you're looking for a book recommendation, take a look at one of these sources. There's a lot of great books out there, maybe you'll find the one that's right for you and your current reading mood through one of the staff recommendations resources listed above.
Looking for book recommendations? We'll we've got a bunch for you. You may already know about the Librarians' Bookshelf, which is an eNewsletter we send out monthly either via e-mail or RSS. This eNewsletter typically has less than 25 recommendations on it each month, but we are now putting the books that appear on the Librarians' Bookshelf eNewsletter (our staff picks) into a larger list of 200 recommendations that is viewable on LibraryThing.
What isLibraryThing? LibraryThing is a social networking site where people can sign-up for a free account and create their own catalog of up to 200 books. They can join online book groups to take part in discussions with other book lovers all around the world. In fact, we've just created a group too! It's called "Brigham City Reads" and it's just getting started. We'd love to make it a place where you can get online to share books you loved with others in the community. I'm hoping that it will come in handy for each of us when we just don't know what to read next. You may get to know other group members by their screen names and find that you like a lot of the books they do. Or maybe something someone says about a book or an author will make you want to give a new book a try.
A LibraryThing group is a great place to talk about books or things that have an obvious association to a book. It's a great way to have an informal chat about the books you're reading or one you're considering. I sometimes finish a book and wonder if other readers came away from it feeling the same as I did. What a great opportunity to try to find out! And you can be as anonymous as you choose. You can use your real name or make your user name something that few, if any, will recognize as you.
Very few rules apply. In the discussion rooms you can say whatever you like, as long as you're nice and don't say offensive things. If you say inappropriate things, other users may flag you, and when enough do, LibraryThing may remove your comment. The library has formed the online group, but individual users are responsible for their own statements.
We've also got a link to the library's LibraryThing 'library'. On the side bar of our blog you'll see some book covers (from our LibraryThing 'library') and right above them you'll see a hyper link called "My Library" that will take you into the complete list of 200 recommendations from our staff. Or you can just click on the "Thingamabrarian" icon to get to the our 'library' as well. As we get new lists of recommendations we'll delete some of the old ones so the list will remain updated.
I signed up for an account of my own not too long ago and have joined a few groups. It's been kind of fun. Sign-up for an account and you can connect with authors, put a widget on your own blog that shows books from your library, and discuss books with other readers. Some of the authors on LibraryThing include: Susan Wittig Albert, Joe Hill, and Sherryl Woods. There are groups to discuss certain author's works as well as certain genre's (i.e. mysteries, thrillers, romance, fantasy, sci-fi). Why not sign-up and see what's there for you, after all, it is free!
If you love books and love sharing them with others or just talking about them, come and join the group now!
Kathryn Havemann, a devoted reader who works as an indexing analyst at LexisNexis, with a listing of her own books on LibraryThing.com. Her personal stacks are behind her in her home in Dayton, Ohio.
By ANNE EISENBERG
Published: March 4, 2007
WHEN many people think of online social networking, they picture Web sites where the young and the restless discuss their love lives and their favorite bands. But Kathryn Havemann, 60, of Dayton, Ohio, has joined a different sort of Web-based network — one where people are linked by a more sedate interest: their book collections.
“I would never put my life out on the Internet,” she said, “except through my books.”
Social networks that tap the interests and buying power of traditionally reserved groups like the bookish are a small but growing force on the Web. Ms. Havemann, for example, is among the 150,000 or so members of LibraryThing (www.LibraryThing.com), a site that lets people create detailed online book catalogs, learn about the collections of other members, discover shared favorites and swap recommendations.
Creating a catalog on the Web site is easy. Enter the title of one of your books, and the search engine supplies the rest of the details, like the International Standard Book Number, or ISBN, and a thumbnail image of the cover. Click again, and list the next item.
You can view or print your catalog instantly, sorted by author, for example, or by more personal tags like “books that mention Venice,” “books that touch on digital photography” or “books I’ve loaned out.” Collections can also be displayed by book covers.
Ms. Havemann, for instance, has catalogued all of the 2,956 volumes at her home, and no longer has to rely on hand-written notes or a spreadsheet. Now, as she collects new books — an unending and delightful process — she uses a portable bar-code scanner to accumulate their ISBNs, then downloads up to 500 entries at a time onto LibraryThing.
But the swift, accurate cataloguing of her books is not what she prizes most about LibraryThing.
“I love the social aspect,” she said.
Many social connections thrive at the site. Although members can keep all details of their online catalog private, most choose to display their libraries, so Ms. Havemann can learn about other members’ collections just as she might if she visited their homes.
For example, software on the site shows her who else among the members has the same titles she has. All the information is listed by user name, which does not have to be one’s real name; that means bookworms can remain anonymous while sharing the details of their collections. There are more than 1,500 discussion groups on the site, too, as well as shared information on the tags or descriptive words that members use to keep track of their books.
LibraryThing carries no advertising. It is supported by commissions from Amazon.com for books bought through the site, and by member fees. Registration is simple: just enter a user name and password, click on “Add books,” and begin.
The first 200 books can be catalogued free; after that, the cost is $10 a year or $25 for a lifetime membership. AbeBooks, an online bookseller, owns a 40 percent share in LibraryThing.
Other sites, too, including Shelfari and aNobii, are building online book cataloguing and social networking services.
Tim Spalding, founder and president of LibraryThing, which is based in Portland, Me., says that while the site was founded in 2005, it is still in what he calls “perpetual beta,” as the software is steadily being improved. “We plan on staying in beta,” he said. “It’s a sign of constant innovation.” So far, more than 10 million books have been catalogued there.
Mr. Spalding, who studied Greek and Latin as a graduate student and is now a Web site developer, wrote the software based on his own bibliographic interests. To compile data like publication dates for each catalog entry, the application searches Amazon, the Library of Congress and 70 other libraries that provide open access to their collections.
Based on data gathered at the site, Mr. Spalding has written programs that recommend books that members may want to read, or may want to skip, based on their own interests. For instance, he said, if you liked “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas S. Kuhn, the program suggests that you are not likely to enjoy “The Virgin’s Lover” by Philippa Gregory.
One way that Mr. Spalding generates site statistics is by analyzing the tags or key words that people use to help them categorize and remember their books. For example, people cataloguing a new detective novel by Donna Leon might add tags like “Guido Brunetti” (the sleuth) or “Venice” (the setting).
When new members add a book by Ms. Leon to their catalogs, for example, all of the tags that others have used to classify the book appear automatically in the bibliographic data. Click on a tag, and it will lead to the user name of its creator, and in turn to that person’s other book choices.
In this way, people can explore one another’s book categories, as they might once have wandered the library stacks, hoping for unexpected finds.
TAGGING is also becoming important to the ways that Internet services raise money, said David L. Sifry, founder and chief executive of Technorati, a company in San Francisco that tracks the tags people use to mark items on the Internet — including those at photo- and video-sharing sites.
Mr. Sifry said advertisers of a product like automobiles will pay a premium of $50 to $150 above the base rate to have their names on a page that many readers have tagged with words related to “car.”
Mr. Spalding, too, plans to take advantage of the targeted-audience information created by tagging to generate revenue.
For example, he is in the process of selling some of his recommendations data, which is based in part on tagging statistics, to other sites that sell books and book information.
Ms. Havemann, who works an indexing analyst at LexisNexis, which offers sophisticated search services, uses tags at LibraryThing because they are helpful in jogging her memory of a specific book’s contents.
“One book can run into another,” she said, “but if I tag a book by a character’s name, for instance, I can remember the book later.” She also checks other people’s tags to see if she wants to add any of their books to her library.
“It’s wonderful,” she said, summing up her experience on the LibraryThing site, “to know there are many other crazy people out there who are absolutely addicted to books.”
Check out this website and catalog your own books at www.librarything.com
