NitaKeepUp

Clarendon Hills Library is thinking about adding LibraryThing to their catalog.  I have been asked to write a review of the website to see if it is something we want to add.  LibraryThing is a website that lets its users catalog their books.  Users can catalog 200 books for free.  After that it is $10 a year or $25 for a life time membership.  The creator, Tim Spalding, likes to refer to the site as a “social cataloging” website.  Not only can users catalog books, but they can also add friends, add “interesting libraries”, review books, and participate in group discussions.  The newest interesting feature allows anyone to contribute to “Common Knowledge”.  Users can add to fields like “place of residency” and “character names” to the author and work pages.  Check out the Common Knowledge from the works page of American Gods by Neil Gaiman here. 

A great feature in LibraryThing is the tag feature.  Users add whatever tags they want to the books they have added.  For instance if you go back to the American Gods work page you will see such tags as fantasy, gods, paperback, signed, and Hugo winner.

 Some libraries have already incorporated LibraryThing into their catalogs.  When LibraryThing is added, patrons can see the tags, reviews and ratings .   Patrons can search by the tags.  They can also see recommended and similiar books.  LibraryThing claims it only takes a few lines of HTML to work.  They plan on soon allowing patrons to add reviews, tags, and user ratings.

Richland County Public Library has added LibraryThing.  They let their patron’s see tags and similar items.  Here is the library record for the Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkin.  As you can see the tags and similar items are on the left side of the record.  Patrons can click on any of the tags to find other items in the catalog that have that tag.

Check out Bedford Public Library’s item record for the Hobbit. They also have tags and similar items, but the layout is different.  They have included the other editions and translations feature that the Richland County Public Library does not use.  

Even academic libraries are using LibraryThing.  I did the same search in the catalog for Watford Institute of Technology.  They include the tags and similar items for the Hobbit. 

My favorite feature about LibraryThing is the tags.  Subject headings are great, but they never can explain everything about an item.  A book mainly about Chicago might have a great little snippet about River Forest in it.  A subject heading is probably not going to catch that, but a person very familiar with the book may include River Forest as a tag.  That book will come up when a patron searches that tag.  The similar items list is also great.  Patrons are always asking for similar books.

One problem we may find is the patron understanding of what a tag is, and how they are different from subject headings.  A class explaining these new features and a brochure may help. 

I hope we seriously consider adding LibraryThing to our catalog.