Introducing Abigail Blachly, Librarian
POSTED BY TIM
LibraryThing welcomes a new member to the team: Abigail Blachly. Abby, a real librarian with a day job, will be helping me out part-time over the next few weeks, and, I hope, beyond. She will be handling some customer emails, and generally helping raise the library-science quotient of LibraryThing.Abby is a graduate of Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science, with a dual MA/MS in Archives and History. She's worked in several college and university archives, and currently works as a corporate archivist/cataloger. A couple years ago I worked with her at Houghton Mifflin, a publisher in Boston. She's sharp!
POSTED BY ABBY
I am in fact, a real librarian by day (though the title to this post seems more like it should be announcing "Abigail Blachly, International Spy" than a librarian), and I'm excited to be helping Tim. LibraryThing is on the cutting edge of cataloging, with its concepts of works, tagging, user-controlled cataloging... And who knew so many people would care about figuring out MARC fields? It's incredible, and I can't wait to get into it all.Anyway, here I am, ready and willing to talk LibraryThing meets library science. I've never worked as a professional cataloger or technical services librarian, though, so go easy on me. But I am still a librarian, after all, so if I don't know an answer, I'll find it.
posted by Tim at 10:15 PM
39 Comments:
Welcoome to the league of thingamabrarians, Abigail.
Welcome, Abigail.
Any hints on what you will start working on first?
This is as good a place as any...
I noticed Sven Hassel is known as Hassel Sven in LibraryThing...
Hi & welcome Abigail.
My question is about separating tags that have been combined. I've been trying to separate my 'ficton' tags from the combined 'fiction' tags. This is because ficton is actually a word itself and not a typo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficton has the definition.
Is it possible to go about this when it's also a common typo for 'fiction' ? How would someone put a note explaining why they separated it, so that it doesn't happen again the next day?
Your tagging thoughts appreciated. Thanks, ryn
ryn_books.
To separate combined tags.
co to page for combined tag.
After the list of incluuded tags click on what?
this brings up a page on which you can separate out.
Welcome, Abigail! Glad to see a fellow librarian working on LT, since Tim has been focusing more on the social tools than on the union catalog thing. I'm much more interested in cataloging my books, and seeing the intersections with other LT users' catalogs, than I am with Fora or Reviews.
Welcome Abigail! I'm so pleased to see a fellow librarian on board and look forward to your contributions.
I think we ain't seen nothin' yet with all of this. Very exciting!
-gw
Welcome! We look forward to picking your brain :)
What a marvelous surprise, to check the blog and find an official librarian joining! The funny thing is how exciting I find it, not being, myself, a notable thingamabrarian. :)
Warmest welcome, Abigail!
Welcome, Abigail! I can tell that you & Tim will make an awesome team, each with your own strengths. Wow, I'm so glad to see this site evolve so quickly -- I see a better LT ever time I log on!
Cheers & best wishes,
patruska
a fellow (sister?) mlis
I'm a librarian and I just discovered library thing and love it!!!! I wish I could include my dvd collection! Is there anything as good as librarything for movies? or are you thinking of expanding to include movies?
Hey Ms. Pie,
I am certainly considering expanding to DVDs (and CDs), but it may be a ways off. Check out DVDSpot, but come back when we add DVDs. We'll add them so much better, I assure you. ;)
Tim
Random thought - is there a way to calculate similar libraries by tags? Like, see someone who uses the same tags as me, even the same tags in a similar frequency?
--Kelsey
Kelsey. Good random thought. You should sit around and have random thoughts :)
Yes, there is. It's something I've thought about doing that. I feel books are a better metric, but it would be nice to try it.
Tim
Along the lines of what Kelsey just said... what I 've been thinking about is if similar libraries could take into account not just having the same books, but also how you've rated them. For example if someone has the same book as me, but I've given it a 5 and they've given it a 1 that shouldn't have the same weight as someone who also gave it a 5.
Thanks. The current algorithm doesn't use ratings. My experiments have not shown it to make too much of a difference in the aggregate. I'm sure there are places where it matters, however.
There's an interesting question about the ratings. Does a higher rating count for more generally, or a low difference between the two ratings. Maybe two people who own the DaVinci Code, but gave it a 1, share a lot...
DVD-Profiler is a nice application for listing your DVD's.
http://www.intervocative.com/
That's an interesting thought: who shares your tags. I'd probably have as much or more to talk about with someone who uses the same obscure tags than with someone who owns the same obscure books.
Also, I'm looking forward to CD/DVD cataloguing. I suppose these would want to be in separate "catalogs" within a user's account, right?
I like the "similar libraries by tag" idea, but I think it would need to be a bit "fuzzy". If I use "books on books" and you use "books about books", or you use "libretto" and I use "libretti", I'd like the site to recognize these as functional equivalents.
And it should also weed out "read" and "unread"!
There's some discussion at the LT Google group about LT _automatically_ using the 'LC Call no.' field that often gets imported along with the other data.
The point 'someone who uses the same obscure tags' would not be taken into account - on the other hand, different spellings wouldn't matter.
Dear Tim,
I'm just a little disheartened that librarything will be less personable. I never thought of myself as a "customer". I thought of my self as a member. That would be two weeks after you started this thing.
As long as I'm not treated like a number, everything should be fine.
Its a bad sign, if the founder of an organization becomes inexcessable.
As long as I'm not treated with disdain or disrespected and ignored ,everything should be fine.
My experience with librarians at brick and mortar libraries over the past two decades has been generally aggravating and ridiculous, excepting for a few excellent people that give, and have given me, great service.
You've probably encountered it yourself. " We're the librarians and your not,and by the way your stupid to." Fortunately, I owe them no allegiance what so ever.
My tax dollars are paying for that stuff and their jobs as well,and if no one shows up to check out books...they'll shut it down.
In the brick and mortar,there have been library staff that crossed the line,and they've been sued.
Now thats what I call a good day.
It does not take much to make "customers" happy. It also does not take much to lose them.
And I'm certain Tim understands how damaging bad press can be.Especially on the net/web.
With all the new brains involved in LibraryThing now, I hope that the letter and the spirit of LibraryThing will not be compromised.
"Hey, that guy just said discouraging words about librarians — get him!" ;)
I don't think the addition of Abby will change the tone around here. I will make no secret of my desire to have two or three "real" employees, with some division of responsibilities sometimes. Some day, perhaps, that will be possible. It's possible to move from a one-person company to a three-person company without becoming the moral equivalent of the De Beers Mining Company.
Abby! No breaks until you process another two tons of MARC records!
... Or by "new brains" did you mean all the new users who are helping out?
Just the hirelings.
Let me clarify. If "you" personaly,were to ever stop posting, then that would be a sad day.
How strange it would be to let a stranger post replies for you.
With out even knowing what you think. You follow?
< aside >
Sorry, but are you aware of that your posts show up as 'anonymous'? Would you terribly mind signing them somehow? Thank you. Curious sunny ;-)
< / aside >
Are you kidde'n me? Oh ya, I'm aware.
The strange thing about the net is,
you can never be sure if your going to get booted because of something you said. And I rarly post anywhere.
Besides, if Tim did not want anyone posting anonymously, he would not have allowed it.
But thanks for asking.
Wait, *I'm* the wizard behind the curtain!
On anonymous postings, I agree with anonymous. (I only wish there was some way to indicate "anonymous-1," "anonymous-2," etc. Sometimes you can't tell if a comment is supposed to have the same thread or not.)
I recently came across the development blog for a new web2.0-ish travel site, travList. The guy wrote:
"This blog was inspired by the development blog for LibraryThing, which I thought was really a great idea."
Alas, the first post didn't allow comments, and subsequent ones prohibited anonymous comments. So I posted a named-comment to that effect, and now he's turned them on.
So there's a plug for another site. I envy the guy, actually. I don't know if he'll make money, but my experience indicates travel can be pretty lucrative. I used to make comprehensive web directories on obscure topics. My history sites (e.g., Alexander the Great) made a lot less money per visitor than my travel ones (e.g., Termessos on the Web).
Arg. Termessos on the Web.
Welcome to Librarything, Abby! I just discovered librarything a week or so ago and absolutely love it!
I have one question/suggestion, though: Have you thought of making it possible for the users to also have a list of "Intend to Read" books on our pages? I have a long, long list which I compile from various magazine recommendations. It would be very nice to be able to add them to a list on librarything, then move them over into my "Have Read" list & review afterwards. Might this ever be available?
Dear Abby,
Well, now that I've voiced and listed my concerns, and we've actually had a real conversation, I guess there's only one more thing to ad.
Welcome to LibraryThing Abby.
After being on the net/web since 1998,
I can tell you that LibraryThing is one of the most completely
useful and meaningful sites.
Currently, I'm working on an idea that will make LibraryThing even cooler.More on that another time.
I'm in the middle cataloging,reevaluating,boxing up,and shelving nearly 3000+ of my own books and it is taking some time. Thats not a lot of books as LibraryThing goes, but it still takes a lot of time.
As far as the "librarian" issue goes,
its like all the professions/vocations.
Some people are gracious,some people aren't. I just deal with them accordingly.
You sound like a very gracious person.
You people staying warm up there on the eastern seaboard?
Having lived in Pennsylvania in the 1970s, I know what winter is.
I do miss that part of the country.
The seasons are clearly defined.
All you need are warm cloths and a sauna,and your good to go.
I live on the west coast,and MIT in my favorite school.
I'll have to take my wife up to see the fall colors in Vermont some day, shes always wanted to go.
Well, this aut to be an interesting year for LibraryThing.
See you on the Thing.
Abby -
Welcome!
I have a question about the different type of bindings. I recognize hardcover, paperback, ringbound, leather, but there are others - like 'library binding'??. What are the common bindings?
Thanks,
Charliehelms
Am I the only one who had problem connecting to the site yesterday? Couldn't see anyone else mentioning it on Google Groups and no mention on the site?
I just got "connection refused" all day.
Tim,
Ditto the previous comment. On Sunday your site was refusing connections and later on it seems that server was issuing rather strange php pages.
Please can you put up a server/service status page?
Thanks
Hi Abigail,
I'm just wondering if I'm missing something - I'd like to be able to click on the tags I've already created to attachthem to a new book, or drag-and-drop... is that already available somehow? Is it coming?
-Michael (also a librarian)
spidermonkeys
spidermonkeys
thingamabrarians
I need Help.
I can't access any more to LibraryThing.
My identifier is ange.gabriel and the"." is now refused.
Thank you for your help...
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