Okay, again, I'm not promoting this here--I'm here to learn and to
contribute. So, apologies for seemingly like I am. if anyone thinks
I'm promoting, please suggest a penalty. I'd sing the praises of AADL,
NCSU, Huddlesfield and Wopac just as eagerly, but with less authority!
The urge to catalog your books is not universal, but I'm surprised to
hear it from a librarian--like a bartender puzzled why anyone would
want to drink at home.
Okay, the comparison isn't exact :) But even if cataloging your
books--including, for example, the ability to check if you have a book
over your mobile phone when standing in a bookstore--has no appeal,
there are still social reasons to catalog your books. You can put the
books your reading on your blog. You can give family members your
catalog URL so you never get another duplicate. Best of all, you can
connect with people around books.
How often do you KNOW who's read the same books as you, particularly
if your tastes are obscure? On LibraryThing I can find everyone else
who's read _Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian
Army_ and chat about the water requirements of camels vs. horses and
what it means for the route of Alexander's army through the Gedrosian
desert. I went to classics grad school and I STILL never met anyone
who'd read that book!
As for metadata, LibraryThing draws on MARC records from over 45
libraries around the world, including the LC, Yale, Chicago, etc. It
doesn't search everything yet. Yet. :)
For THIS discussion, I think LibraryThing has two things to say. The
first I already said--about OPACs being web aps and the changing
dynamics of cost and development.
The second--and more interesting--is that books are POWERFULLY social.
They are important social markers—people self- and other-identify
based upon what books they read. And they are powerful social
connectors. People love to talk about their books.
Libraries are not unaware of this, of course, and have moved in some
exciting directons--such as the various one-city one-book programs.
But OPACs ARE unaware of it. How many OPACS have "people who like this
book also liked these books"? How about "Talk to someone who's read
this book?" Reviews are rare and reader reviews rarer. You can't even
get a rough idea how popular a book has been, something a lot of
people consider. Amazon has all these features. They are, IMHO, the
main reason for its success. (If having a lot of books online were it,
B&N would matter.)
LibraryThing kicks this up a notch, at least as I see it. Tags allow
readers to search for books using terms that make sense to
them--"steampunk," "fan fiction," "paranormal romance," "queer
fiction"--but will never make either LCSH or FAST. And LT largely
removes the commercial element and--because it's about entire
collections not recent purchases--digs deep into the stacks. So where
a Harry Potter reader on Amazon is told to buy the movie DVD, a
LibraryThing user is pointed toward Madeline L'Engle.
$0.02. I'll shut up now :)
Tim
On 6/21/06, Sue Woodson <woodson_at_jhu.edu> wrote:
> I have the same question. There are lots of better ways to get and
> manage metadata about books. If I were trying to catalog my books I'd go
> to WorldCat for metada and if I were an unafilliated scholar I'd use
> RedLightGreen, Open WorldCat or the Library of Congress catalog. If you
> are serious about keeping a catalog there's software like RefWorks and
> EndNote.
>
> Who keeps catalogs of their books anyway? Are these people who loan
> their books out and keep track of who has them?
>
> Sue
>
>
>
> >>> ross.singer_at_LIBRARY.GATECH.EDU 06/21/06 8:55 PM >>>
> So, in a meeting today (in a group that is designing our community
> contributed catalog, Communicat) we were discussing LibraryThing.
>
> Who uses this? And for what? It seems a... somewhat pointless service.
>
> Regardless of how useful it may be to actually get the metadata and
> whatnot.
>
> -Ross.
>
Received on Wed Jun 21 2006 - 22:59:35 EDT