The Shaker Heights Public Library does not use LibraryThing for Libraries. the do not have their own OPAC, but rather are part of the CLEVNET consortium catalogue, headed by the Cleveland Public Library. But the Shaker Heights Public Library is using LibraryThing to create alternate catalogues for special collections.

Local History

They have a LibraryThing catalogue for their Shaker Authors & Local History Catalog (lt user: MorelandRoom) On the collection web page, they encourage you to look at the LibraryThing catalogue and especially the tags cloud.

According to their site, these books are all catalogued in the CLEVNET consortium catalogue. But it would be difficult to separate a non-circulating special collection in a standard library OPAC, so LibraryThing is a way to highlight that collection without significant expense.

SCORE Business books

In a post on BlogJunction, Ed Rossman from Shaker Heights Public Library also talks about using LibraryThing to create a catalogue for business books they use with Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE). The LibraryThing catalogue for this small collection (lt user: shpl_biz) has tags indicating subject, and location of the books. Again, this is an example of how LibraryThing can be used to highlight a specific set of books in a way that is difficult in an OPAC.

I just had to post about Los Gatos Public Library, not just because it has a wonderful name, but because they are using LibraryThing in lots of nifty ways.

They’ve added LibraryThing for Libraries to their catalogue, try the record for Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The tag cloud and similar title list are quite visibly labelled, under the Copy/Holding information.

Where Los Gatos gets really interesting is in the other ways it uses LibraryThing: Lists of award winners, and librarian’s favourites.

On the catalogue menu bar, there’s a link to the Award Winners page. This page lists and describes 20 significant book awards,from the Alex Award to the Whitbread award. If you click on an award name, it opens the LTfL tag browser, and displays the list of books tagged with that award. This is a neat use of crowd-generated data to add functionality to your library page.

The librarians at Los Gatos have also created a library in LibraryThing (user: LGPLfavorites), and used it to create a ‘Librarian’s Favourites’ list, which they published on their blog: Our Favorite Things @ the Library (Thing).

Again, I am sorry to see that the Other editions functionality is not used, but overall, I think that this is a lovely implementation of LTfL, and I like the other ways they’ve squeezed LibraryThing functionality for their own use.

In July 2007, the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) was the first academic library, and the first non-US library to implement LibraryThing for Libraries. When I looked at tagging at the Danbury Public Library, I saw how tags were useful for giving an idea of the theme and content of novel. But tagging is not just good for fiction!

The WIT Library announced these new features on their Library Blog, and LibraryThing announced the implementation on their Thingology Blog.

Take a look at the WIT catalogue record for Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. It is interesting to compare the LTfL tags with the Subject Headings.

In this case, the LT tag cloud provides a much richer indication of the book’s content.

Of course, LTfL tags so not always provide a deeper indication of the content, if you look at the record for The Design and Evolution of C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup, you can see that the Subject Tag “C++ (Computer program language)” isn’t really improved on by the tags in the LT tag cloud:

While it made me smile, the tag “cool” is not particularly useful.

Good Stuff
I do really like the way that the LT data is highlighted by the grey background – while not the most appealing design, it certainly does draw attention to the wealth of information in the tag cloud and the similar books list.

Could be Better Stuff
Alas, I couldn’t find an example of the Other editions functionality – but the library’s blog post says that it is available.

North Vancouver City Library (NVCL) blogged about its use of LibraryThing in February 2008. It was one of the first two libraries in Canada to use LTfL. In their catalogue, you can now see a tag cloud, which I looked at in my post about the Danbury Public Library. They chose not to display the other editions data I looked at in my post on the Claremont Colleges catalogue. I’ll use the NVCL as an example of LTFL’s recommendation functionality – Similar works.

In LibraryThing user create records of the books in their collections. Using this data, LibraryThing calculates the likelihood of two books appearing in the same collection. This likelihood can be used to predict books that may be similar in theme or content. For example, look at the NVCL catalogue record for The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory.

By using the LibraryThing data on likelihood of books appearing in the same collection, the record can provide links to other books the library holds that are potentially similar. One click opens the catalogue record for the selected book.

Good Stuff:

• An instant recommendation system. As John Wenzler said in A Workshop on Next Generation Libraries (.pdf), “There are thousands of LibraryThing users who have tagged millions of books on the site. Consequently, LibraryThing has harvested a rich collection of user-generated metadata about books that it presents in tag clouds and uses to make recommendations.”

Could be Better Stuff:

• You can lose some time following a path of interesting books from one record to another
• Statistical recommendations are not always accurate, and the essence that someone is looking for in a similar book may not be captured.

Other Stuff
A few things I wanted to note about how NVCL implemented LTfL:

• I initially disliked the way the LTfL data was displayed in the side menu, I thought it was too thin. But it did grow on me.
• It is a pity that they did not include the Other editions functionality.

Next I’ll look at an example of non-fiction tagging.

When The Libraries of The Claremont Colleges went live with LibraryThing for Libraries in September 2007, it was the largest collection using LTfL. It is an example of both an academic library and a library consortium using LTfL.

In a previous post, I talked about Danbury Public Library using tags from LibraryThing to enhance reader’s advisory and browsing. In the context of an academic library. The feature I’d like to highlight at this library is the Other editions list.

When you look at the record for a book in the Claremont Colleges catalogue, you see a list of links titled “Other editions and translations (LibraryThing suggested).” This is a list of all the other books in the library that LibraryThing has identified as being the same ‘work’ as the book you are looking at.

LibraryThing uses the concept of a work to gather information about different editions of the same work together. Much of the information in LibraryThing for example, tags and reviews, can apply to all editions of a work. The base unit of a book in LibraryThing is the copy of a book that someone has added to their library. That copy is an example of an edition. The edition is one of many editions that represent a work. LibraryThing users have the ability to identify which work they think an edition belongs to – in effect, partially FRBRising the LibraryThing catalogue.

This information about different editions to a work are very useful in an academic catalogue. For example, take a look at Claremont Colleges catalogue record for Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf:

By using the LibraryThing edition information, the record can provide links to all the other identified editions of Beowulf the library holds. If a user does not want the translation by Heaney, they can immediately tell that there are three other translations available. One click opens the catalogue record for the selected translation.

Good Stuff

• Lets the sure see all available editions of a work, not just the one they selected from the catalogue search results.
• Gives the user the ability to make an informed choice about the edition they use.
• While not shown in the Heany example, this feature also can tie together versions in different languages and in different media, e.g. large print and audio books.

Could be Better Stuff

• This catalogue has the biggest lag, it took up to twenty second for the LibraryThing data to show up, and there are no place holders to indicate that there is more data to come.
• In an interview with ARCLog, three librarians involved in the LTfL implementation at Claremont Colleges described some wish list improvements they’d lie to see including:
  • Because there is no live link, when new books is added to Claremont’s catalogue, someone has to manually send the new ISBNs to LT to have their data updated.
  • LibraryThing depends on ISBN numbers to determine what books a library has. If a book has no ISBN, it isn’t included in the LibraryThing data.

In future blog posts, I’ll talk about the list of Similar books.

Danbury Library was the first library to implement LibraryThing for Libraries, they went live in May 2007.

Danbury Library announced the new features on their Library Blog, and LibraryThing announced the implementation on their Thingology Blog.

I’ll use this library as an example of using tags in library catalogues.

When you look at the record for a book in the Danbury Library catalogue, you see the standard information: author, title, publisher, and subject. LibraryThing for Libraries adds an additional section, Tags.

Tags are words or phrases assigned to a book by users, in this case by LibraryThing users. When you look at a book in the Danbury Library catalogue, you get to see the most common tags users have provided for that book. The tags are arranged in a cloud, which means they are in alphabetical order, with the size of the tag font indicating how often that tag is given to that book.

For example, look at the catalogue record for The Remorseful Day, by Colin Dexter.

The most commonly used tags are the largest: crime, Inspector Morse, morse, and detective. A quick glance at the tag cloud gives you an idea of what the book is about. Also, the tag Inspector Morse provides access to a list of all the books in the Inspector Morse series, information which is very, very useful, and often hard to find in library catalogues.

When you click on a tag, it opens the Tag Browser, and displays three things:

• A list of the other books in the library that also have that tag, when you click on a book title, it opens the catalogue record for that book
• The tag cloud for the book you were looking at, when you click on a tag, it displays the list of books that have that tag.
• A list of related tags – tags that are used on the same books as the tag you clicked on, again click on a tag to display the list of books with that tag

Alas for usability, one of the most exciting features of LTfL is buried in the tag browser. There is a Tag search that will search all of the tags that have been assigned to books in the library. For example, if you search for ‘steam punk’, the tag browser will display the list of books with this tag, and a list of related tags. This is a powerful way to locate books on topics that are not covered by standard subject headings – genre types such as “cozy mystery”, “chick lit” and “space opera” are a good examples.

Good stuff

• Tags can give you a better summary of a books content, as they’re not as restricted.
• Tags can use natural language, might be more relevant than the standard subject.
• Tags can let you focus your browsing to a very specific area.
• Tags give you an idea of what a wide community think of a book.

Kate Sheehan (loosecannonglibrarian.net) of Danbury Library describes the implementation of LibraryThing into their catalogue in her presentation LibraryThing for Libraries: The OPAC as Social Butterfly. She describes LTfL as “A way to add innovative features without paying through the nose.” The implementation was painless, and the results good – the staff like it for reader’s advisory, and the patrons love it (once someone points it out to them!) The NELA Conference Blog has notes about the questions asked at her presentation.

Could be Better Stuff

• Tags are not always splendid (e.g. the tag ‘flat’ is likely a location rather than a description of a book).
• You can’t search for them in keyword searches, the tag search is separate and deeply buried.
• Users might get confused between the ‘official’ subject tags and the LT tags.
• You can’t add or edit tags in the catalogue, you have to go to LT, have an account, and then have a copy of the book in your personal library before you can update tags for that book.

In future blog posts, I’ll talk about the lists of Other editions and Similar books.

* Please note that this is an obligatory title for posts about social tagging, and I wanted to et it out of the way early in the piece.

I’m a big fan of LibraryThing (LT user: francescadefreitas) and once I saw that one of the potential topics was “Social Bookmarking [Folksonomies, Tagging, and tag clouds]” I jumped at the chance to look at LibraryThing for Libraries.

The reason I am so enthusiastic about LibraryThing for Libraries is that it provides benefit to users without a tremendous effort.

LibraryThing for Libraries can add three key bits of functionality to a library’s OPAC display:

• A subject tag cloud
• A list of other editions held by the library
• A list of similar books held by the library

If a library were to try an add this functionality to their catalogue themselves, it would be a significant effort in two parts:

• Writing the code to add the functionality, which may involve the OPAC vendor
• Collecting the data, for example, hand tagging every book in the catalogue, or asking library patrons to do it, defining FRBR relationships for every book, and writing a set of reader’s advisory recommendations for every book

LibraryThing for Libraries is a way to avoid these problems:

• They have written the software, all you have to add to the library catalogue is some simple lines of display code.
• They have a huge number of users, who for their own reasons, have gone and tagged a massive number of books, defined relationships between editions of a work, and rated and reviewed books they’ve read.

The LibraryThing for Libraries Tour provides some statistics:

• LibraryThing members have added more than 23 million tags to books.
• Related editions and translations covers 275,000 ISBNs.
• LibraryThing recommendations cover 656,000 ISBNs.

Even if all of the patrons were willing to chip in, it would not be possible for individual libraries to generate that amount of data.

In this blog I’m going to take a look at LibraryThing for Libraries, and how it has been implemented in various libraries. There is not a great deal of variation in the functionality across different libraries, but how they choose to label and display the LibraryThing data differs. Different types of libraries showcase different ways the functionality is useful.

Because LibraryThing for Libraries is intended to integrate seamlessly into the existing library catalogue, it is difficult to talk about how easy it is for patrons to locate it. I’ll mention any variations I notice in how the data is displayed. I’ll note where this functionality is featured in the Library’s blog or News page.

And I am going to use ‘LTfL’ rather than typing out LibraryThing for Libraries all the time.