New ways to link to a book
Announcing two new and super-easy ways to link from elsewhere to a LibraryThing book—simple links by ISBN and "sloppy title." Some examples
http://www.librarything.com/isbn/0441172717
http://www.librarything.com/isbn/0380976749
http://www.librarything.com/title/voyage_of_the_dawn_treader
http://www.librarything.com/title/the+educated+imagination
http://www.librarything.com/title/tender violence
Why is this good? People—members and others—are increasingly using LibraryThing as their link-of-choice when blogging about a book. We are flattered, but think it also makes sense. LibraryThing "goes with the grain" of blogging. Like blogging LibraryThing is participatory and generous of external links—soon to get more generous. Many want to plug into that vibe, not just offer a place to buy the book.
The ISBN search works just as you might expect. (Note, however, that it pulls up the whole "work," probably composed of a number of books, ISBN and not.)
The title search is the fruit of LibraryThing's increasingly powerful data. It is quite tolerant:
http://www.librarything.com/title/Guns, germs, and steel : the fates of human societies
http://www.librarything.com/title/Guns, germs, and steel
http://www.librarything.com/title/Guns germs steel
All work equally well. Now and then the first guess will be wrong. Mostly it's dead on. Oh, you can represent spaces as underscores, plus signs (+) or, in most editing software, leave them as spaces.
Let me know what you think!
*for example, giving Val McDermid's The Mermaids Singing instead of my wife's The Mermaids Singing. Val has more copies, but the wife should win. The fact that she doesn't is testimony to my integrity! I don't unfairly promote by wife's wonderful books--available at all major retailors--through LibraryThing. Nor will I later this month when her newest novel, Every Visible Thing, is released.
http://www.librarything.com/isbn/0441172717
http://www.librarything.com/isbn/0380976749
http://www.librarything.com/title/voyage_of_the_dawn_treader
http://www.librarything.com/title/the+educated+imagination
http://www.librarything.com/title/tender violence
Why is this good? People—members and others—are increasingly using LibraryThing as their link-of-choice when blogging about a book. We are flattered, but think it also makes sense. LibraryThing "goes with the grain" of blogging. Like blogging LibraryThing is participatory and generous of external links—soon to get more generous. Many want to plug into that vibe, not just offer a place to buy the book.
The ISBN search works just as you might expect. (Note, however, that it pulls up the whole "work," probably composed of a number of books, ISBN and not.)
The title search is the fruit of LibraryThing's increasingly powerful data. It is quite tolerant:
http://www.librarything.com/title/Guns, germs, and steel : the fates of human societies
http://www.librarything.com/title/Guns, germs, and steel
http://www.librarything.com/title/Guns germs steel
All work equally well. Now and then the first guess will be wrong. Mostly it's dead on. Oh, you can represent spaces as underscores, plus signs (+) or, in most editing software, leave them as spaces.
Let me know what you think!
*for example, giving Val McDermid's The Mermaids Singing instead of my wife's The Mermaids Singing. Val has more copies, but the wife should win. The fact that she doesn't is testimony to my integrity! I don't unfairly promote by wife's wonderful books--available at all major retailors--through LibraryThing. Nor will I later this month when her newest novel, Every Visible Thing, is released.
posted by Tim at 10:55 PM
22 Comments:
Very cool. Like so much else. We salute your creativity and industry, as well as integrity! :)
A great improvement - I really hate it when people use a link to a commericial retailer when blogging about a book.
One suggestion for the isbn urls - handling of ISBN-13's would be nifty. Not a big deal, but as of next year we're going to see 979xxxxxxxxxx ISBNs appearing.
The example ISBN links aren't working for me tonight.
ISBNs aren't working for me either, but I do look forward to using these on my blog!
Adding .com after 'librarything' made it work for me. :)
I would like to link to some topic (by tags) in my catalog.
ISBN-13: I know we need to get on the ball about them, all over the site, not just here. Thanks for the reminder.
Tag-links: Do a tag search in your catalog and then select the "permanent link" link on the bottom of your catalog. I think you'll find it works just the way you want. If not, write more here.
Regarding the previous comment by "james", about hating when folks link to "commercial" sites when they blog about books ... the problem I have with using a link to LibraryThing rather than to Amazon (for instance), is that there is typically little or no information on what the book is about in the L.T. listings.
For instance, Lisa Carey's "The Mermaids Sing" ... I was interested to see what Tim's wife had written, but I still had to click through to Amazon to get a description.
If one is blogging about a book (and I write reviews in mine for every book I read), I feel it is far more useful for one's readers to point them to a place where they can get content info (beyond my own brilliant analysis, of course) than the "just the facts" sort of listing provided on the L.T. Book Info pages.
Where should we put bug reports?
[If you make a bug-report page, it could include a list of "known bugs & workarounds," which would be a big help.]
Bug: book with '-20' owners.
http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?work=974488
It's also disappeared from the combine/separate page.
BTRIPP: Good point. We're looking to add some of that info.
Love the add-ons, love the site. Speaking of a bug page...my beloved LT widget appears to have stopped working! At first, I thought it could be something I've done, but the widgets have gone missing on other blogs as well...is this a more general problem at the moment?
unabridged opinions
Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Can't connect to MySQL server on '72.12.88.166' (4) in /home/tspalding/live.librarything.com/data/inc_magicDB.php on line 53
Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Lost connection to MySQL server during query in /home/tspalding/live.librarything.com/data/inc_magicDB.php on line 62
I keep getting these errors this morning. :)
Me too.
And the site looks really slow today...
On the plus side, my widgets are back. Thank goodness.
unabridged opinions
I just noticed that the links I have posted in the About me and About my library sections on my profile are not working. The site doesn't seem to be recognizing the html. :)
a few shameless plugs for the wife can't hurt! I'm of no objection. :D
Nifty feature. Keep up the wonderful work.
Annabeth: Fixed. Thanks.
I'm just curious. Is it possible to load my LibraryThing catalog onto my iPod? I think I've heard discussions..and it's probably just in an idea phase...but that would be really cool. Is that even possible? (I'm new to iPod).
Hey Anabeth. Someone on the GG posted a solution that involved moving records through Outlook, I think. But we're committed to doing the iPod thing soon.
This addition is extremely clever and useful. Thank you!
is there a way of mapping between a librarything book nimber (an accession nimber?) and an ISBN?
thanks
tony
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