Since I posed the initial question about LibraryThing, academic
libraries, and overlap, I suppose it's time for me to do my part.
Here are the general statistics for comparing overlap between the NCSU
Libraries collection and LibraryThing. NCSU Libraries is a research
university with both undergraduate and graduate programs. It's possible
I may find an error with my logic, but the results seem fairly in-line
with the original comparison by James Brunskill (Library/University of
Waikato).
See his findings at:
http://librarycogs.blogspot.com/2007/02/compare-your-library-with-librarything.html
NCSU Libraries:
Total Titles Titles w/ISBN Unique ISBNs Percentage ISBNs unique
1730834 798963 574202 71.9%
LibraryThing:
ISBNs Unique Percentage ISBNs unique
1774319 1549558 87.3%
Overlap:
ISBNs in common: 224761
Percent NCSU Libraries titles with ISBNs that overlap: 28%
Percent total NCSU Libraries titles that overlap: 13%
You have to remember that only about 48% of our total titles have an
ISBN in the record (020 or 024) to begin with. Some of the records, of
course, are serials.
Tim and I might also be approaching this a bit differently. I am
thinking in terms of titles, rather than individual ISBN numbers. Some
of our titles have multiple ISBNs (both the paperback and hardcover),
and I looked for a single LibraryThing match across those ISBNs so that
a title could only be counted once, even if it had multiple ISBNs.
An interesting comment from looking at a few of the ISBNs that did
match. They are often the sparsest records in LibraryThing - owned by
only 1 or 2 people, often lacking cover art, tags, recommendations.
Here is actually one of the more exciting examples I found with a bit of
poking around:
http://www.librarything.com/work/2082719
Does that have any implications when it comes to thinking about
LibraryThing and academic libraries working together? We're very
interested in tags and recommendations from LT for our resources, but
how many are actually available? Something to ponder...
Questions? Let me know...I can post this data in the Thingology
comments, as well.
http://www.librarything.com/thingology/2007/02/new-feed-compare-your-library-with.php
-emily lynema
NCSU Libraries
Tim Spalding wrote:
> Emily Lynema wrote:
>
>> Do you have any idea of the coverage of non-fiction, research
>> materials in LT? Have you done any projects to look at overlap with a
>> research institution (or with WorldCat)?
>
>
> I made an ISBN feed, so libraries could compare their holdings with
> LibraryThing, and blogged about it here:
>
> http://www.librarything.com/thingology/2007/02/new-feed-compare-your-library-with.php
>
>
> If you don't want to do the programming, you can send me your ISBN feed
> instead.
>
> Tim
--
Emily Lynema
Systems Librarian for Digital Projects
Information Technology, NCSU Libraries
919-513-8031
emily_lynema_at_ncsu.edu
Received on Fri Mar 09 2007 - 16:35:59 EST