Thing #13: Library Thing

NIGHT OF THE LIVING LIBRARIANS

All right.  I confess.  When I first read about LibraryThing in the 23 Things at NEFLIN blog, I found the concept intriguing--followed quickly by pangs of conscience.

Thoughts flitted through my mind about handing the asylum keys over to the inmates.

Allow actual readers / patrons / laypeople to catalog their own libraries?  What about Library of Congress subject headings?  Uniform titles?  Authority control?

My old cataloguing professor, may she rest in peace, returned briefly from the grave to haunt me.

COMING AROUND TO THE CONCEPT

But then I actually went to the site and read a little more, took the tour (exquisitely done), read the FAQs (informative, clear), and I abandoned all loyalty to the past.  I like LibraryThing.

There.  I've said it.  I have only myself to blame.

The death warrant will be issued within moments of my publishing this blogpost.  Hit squads from the Cataloguing Department will now ambush me in the back hallway.  My only hope lies in anonymity / disguise.

Maybe I could put on Groucho Marx glasses and pass myself off as narwhale.  One with really long flippers that terminate in cloven hooves.  But Virtual Unicorn digresses.

SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR BOOK LOVERS

"Reframing" is a favorite phrase of one of my library system's Division Directors.  It means looking at things in a new way in order to free oneself from knee-jerk (usually negative) responses.

I find that if I look on LibraryThing as a social networking site for book lovers, not a torch-bearing, pitchfork-wielding mob of iconoclasts out to burn down the sacred temple of Cataloguing and put all the holy people out of a job, I'm much more comfortable with the concept.

It's more like a book lovers' club or a book discussion group, rather than a traditional library.  (But, of course, who says libraries have any intention of remaining "traditional"?)

And it's certainly not a books-by-mail service or bookstore.  I love the quote in the FAQs: "LibraryThing cares about books, not about SELLING books."

MY NEFARIOUS PAST

I love books.  I love talking about books and reading about books and hanging out with other people who appreciate books.

That's why I've worked at my library for 22 years, worked in bookstores for 7 years before that, have been known to write a book from time to time and once, many years ago when I first went to college, was a card-carrying English major.

These days, I think they call it language arts.  But what it really means is books.

Yes, I admit it.  I'm a book lover.  I've been a book lover all my life.  I know it's habit-forming, but I don't care.  Long live the printed word!  I intend to depart this life with book in hand.

A LITTLE FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Just because I don't hold hooves on the first date--I'm not that kind of unicorn--I decided to do a tad more investigation before making a commitment to join.

BROWARD COUNTY YA LIBRARIAN

I really liked what the Broward County YA Librarian was doing with her LibraryThing account: keeping up with her library school classwork (reading lists of YA books) and providing a forum for her teen volunteers.

I can see immediate application for my department's newly created position of YA librarian.  This sounds like a great way to keep a core of interested teen library supporters in touch with one another, even when they don't have transportation to come to the library for, say, book club discussions.

FLASH-MOBS: NO TORCHES, NO PITCHFORKS

I also checked out the LibraryThing Blog, where each month's Early Reviewer books are posted.  That feature holds a lot of interest for me.  Reading prepublication review copies and writing reviews looks like tons of fun!

I also read with fascination about flash-mob cataloguing parties, where a group of volunteer descend upon an organization's small, unorganized library.  Using wireless laptops and CueCat barcode scanners, they catalog the collection using LibraryThing.

This reminds me of the inventory companies that used to come once a year to the bookstore where I worked to inventory the stock after hours between the time we closed the doors in the evening and opened them on the morning of the following day.

The difference here, of course, is that the flash-mob cataloguers are paid only in free pizza and good fellowship.  Sounds like another dynamite project for teen volunteers!

SIGNING UP

By this time, I was sold, so I decided to sign up for a free account.  I found the price-break (first 200 books free, $15 per year thereafter or $25 for a lifetime membership) entirely reasonable.

Signing up was quick and easy.  I edited my profile to include an image and geographic location.

Next step was to enter some books.  I decided to go with some recent reads.  The process was simple.  LibraryThing takes care of the grunt work of supplying the bibliographic info so I was able to concentrate on short, punchy reviews.

WIDGETS THAT WEREN'T

I decided to add two widgets to my blog: a standard blog widget, which shows random books from my LibraryThing library and a search widget, which enables readers to search my library directly from the blog.

Alas, nothing I did could get them to show up.  The code pasted in fine, but Preview never revealed the widgets.

I scared myself silly at least twice when, having pasted in the code, all the other text of my blogpost seemingly disappeared.

Luckily, the first time Blogger had autosaved just before I did the paste.  After that, I saved manually before every paste attempt--but still to no avail.

Alas, I must content myself with pasting in a link to VirtualUnicorn's LibraryThing profile and VirtualUnicorn's LibraryThing library page.

Sigh.  This is not as fancy as I would have liked it to have been, but I need to get on to Thing #14.

FEATURES OF INTEREST

Just as a last word, I thought I'd quickly run over those features I found of greatest interest about LibraryThing.

I was not terribly interested in any of the group features right at the moment.  I think I'd like to watch (old-style listserves used to call it "lurking") for a while before joining.

The Early Reviewer program did look interesting to me, although I see there is a lot of competition for the review copies: 5 to 30 times more requests that there are books to go around.

I did, however, put my name down for The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato, The New 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth by Sophie Javna Earthworks Group, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire b C.M. Mayo, The Survival Handbook by Collin Towell, The Moon & the Sun by Vonda McIntyre, Mom's Guide to Growing Your Family Green by Terra Wellington, and The Manual of Deception by Jedediah Berry.

I'll just have to wait and see.

The Members Book Giveaway Program also looks interesting.  I intend to investigate further at a later time.

I also took a look at LibraryThing local, listing my area as the 50-mile radius around Gainesville, Florida.  I was astonished to find nothing listed.  So I added Comics for Everyone, a featured ACLD event to take place on March 19th.

ENOUGH

Good heavens, look at the time.  It's 2:30 in the afternoon.  All for now.  I haven't even had breakfast.