Porter Square Books!
Porter Square Books in Cambridge, MA has become the second bookstore to integrate with LibraryThing.As with the first bookstore, Shaman Drum of Ann Arbor, MI, we're doing this to please local members, not to make a buck. There were no string attached, and LibraryThing does not make any money from it.
If they're your local bookstore, just edit your profile to note that and you'll get availability and pricing information on all work pages. If they're not your bookstore, go ahead and find out if your bookstore can integrate. To work with Porter Square Books, we set up a simple upload form, instead of requiring an XML feed. If they're right, there are about 30 bookstores around the country that generate similar feeds for Booksense. I'll post about that in more detail later over on Thingology.
I grew up in Cambridge and spent most of my life there. But I moved to Maine three years ago, and I haven't set foot in Porter Square Books, and I haven't met the people who work there. I hear it's great, and Dale, the director, was a pleasure to work with. Are any other Thingamabrarians Cantabrigians* or Somerville-ers**? Anyone go there?
*Hey! That's what we're called.
**Note that Cambridge has a nifty Latin form. Somerville does not.
posted by Tim at 11:23 AM
14 Comments:
Cambridge England has a niffy latin form. I dispute the right of those, who borrowed our city's name, to also take the name Cantabrigarian.
The OED (published by some minor university up the Thames) says "a member of the University of Cambridge". M.I.T. and Harvard are NOT mentioned.
Ringman M.A.(Cantab)
sorry typo: it's Cantabrigian not Cantabrigarian as I had it or Cantabridgian as Tim put it.
yup, I'm a local(ish - Waltham) who has been to Porter Square Books. I'm excited by thi development!
Ringman on typo: Oh, the shame, the shame.
On use of term: Well it certainly is used, albeit in slight fun. But then Cambridge, MA is much more important than Cambridge, England these days anyhow.
I think Somerville is just called "out there."
Porter Square Books rocks! They are one of my local independent bookstores; I'm lucky to be surrounded by so many. (Hooray for Camberville!)
Re naming rights, I've also heard Somervillains. :)
The horrible thing is that Davis Square is now, in many ways, what Harvard Square used to be. Soon, Ball Square will be the happening place. Oh the pain, the pain.
We even have Cantabrigia, Middlesex, as the place of publication for at least one item in LT.
RJO (same as Claire)
Of course, 'Cantab' is sneered at in certain places. [of Cambridge] the Oxford view: a cold damp place in the Fens founded by a group of people thrown out of Oxford ... Hence Cambrian meaning "of or relating to the first period in the Palaeozic era, marked by the occurrence of many forms of invertebrate life." If you wish to associate yourselves with fossils and brachiopods, go ahead.
ps yes, yes, we know, Welsh. But you're missing the point if that's what you're focusing on. No sense of humor, Tabs... :-p
PSB is a nice little place. You should get in touch with Lorem Ipsum books (loremipsumbooks.com/about/) in Cambridge too- serious geeks running that place. (Authors of http://www.ka-zam.com/ - something else for you guys to talk with.)
I'd love to get Harvard Bookstore Involved. They're big enough that I suspect that have someone who can generate the file. I don't know Lorem Ipsum. Schoenhofs—now THERE's a bookstore to have. Only they're way past local in their reach.
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tim: lorem ipsum is very tiny, but software-oriented- like I said, founded by serious geeks; didn't mention that they are MIT Media Lab alums who really like books. So they could definitely get on board. In fact, I believe I learned about Library Thing from their blog. (When I emailed them last year, they whipped up an RSS feed of all the used books crossing their doorstep. Of course, they did that a week after I moved to New York, so fat lot of good it did me.)
Harvard Bookstore would of course be a huge, great catch.
I've emailed the excellent Labyrinth here in NYC and told them to get on board with LT; if one of your readers could get The Strand on board that would be huge :)
Since Somerville is a college in Oxford, the correct term is Oxonian.
Porter Square Books is great!! It's quite dangerous to go in there, especially on a student budget :) If you're looking for other good independent bookstores in the area, there's Pandemonium also (recently it moved from Harvard Sq to Central Sq).
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