Introducing LibraryThing Local
Today we* unveil a major new section of the site, LibraryThing Local.What is it? LibraryThing Local is a gateway to thousands of local bookstores, libraries and book festivals—and to all the author readings, signings, discussions and other events they host. It is our attempt to accomplish what hasn't happened yet—the effective linking of the online and offline book worlds. Books still don't fully "work" online; this is a step toward mending them.
LibraryThing Local is a handy reference, but it's also interactive. You can show off your favorite bookstores and libraries (eg., mine include the Harvard Bookstore, Shakespeare and Company and the Boston Athenaeum) and keep track of interesting events. Then you can find out who else loves the places you do, and who else is going to events. You can also find local members, write comments about the places you love and more.
LibraryThing members rock. LibraryThing Local just opened, but for the past week we've let a few members in to check it out and add venues.** They went crazy!
Together, about two-dozen members added over 2,600 venues. The coverage is spotty, covering the members personal interests. So, Paris is a literary desert, but Chicago and Antwerp are a mess of little green and blue dots, and even frosty Juneau (pictured right) is done.*** LibraryThing Local would be boring without content, so everone owes a debt of gratitude to members like SilentInAWay (400), alibrarian (351), christiguc (302), Talbin (242), SqueakyChu (240), boekerij (217) and others for kicking things off so well.This kind of passion give us hope that LibraryThing Local will swiftly become the web's best, most complete source for finding bookstores and library—and for the events they throw. Unfortunately, we only got events working yesterday, so there are only 200 so far. Something to work on?
Authors! Publishers! Libraries! Bookstores! Right now, everyone can add events. But they won't necessarily get to you, so go ahead and add your venues and events. We are experimenting with the concept of "claiming" a venue, so that a bookstore of library can assert control over its basic factual information. (You don't control the comment wall, of course.) For now, you need to email us. Go to a venue for more details.Beta, Forevah. LibraryThing Local is not "done." It's missing key features, like RSS. And it has a few bugs. For good or ill, that's how we work around here.
The main planned improvements are:
- RSS Feeds
- Fine-grained privacy settings
- Author and work integration
- Enhanced features for bookstores and libraries that take part
- More stats, like the most interesting events
- Introducing LibraryThing Local (but we hope people leave blog comments too)
- LibraryThing Local bugs
Use BookTour! (We do not.) LibraryThing Local was something I've wanted to do since visiting Ireland a year ago and not knowing where the bookstores were. But I didn't get serious about the idea until approached by BookTour.
BookTour is a startup founded by Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and the upcoming Free. Chris' idea was to make a central site to collect information about authors on tour.
LibraryThing agreed to be BookTour's first partnership. But along the way we ran into difficulties. We wanted strong venue information, so members could show off their favorite bookstores and libraries. BookTour is focused on the events more than venues, which include many duplicates. Eventually it became clear to me we were after different things, so we parted ways.
Although LibraryThing Local is now doing some of the same things, I hope blog readers will check out BookTour. I expect them to be adopted by other book-related sites and, at present, their data is more copious than ours. Certainly, no author should tour without first adding all their events there, and they have a very handy Excel-based upload option that will appeal to publicists with large numbers of events.
* Chris (conceptDawg), whose favorite bookstores include Bienvielle Books, built much of LibraryThing Local. Send praise his way!
**We released LibrayThing Local to a private but non-exclusive beta group two weeks ago. Later, after deciding not to use others site's data (see above), we let members add their own venues, and later events.
***Best of all the Alaskan-adder, alibrarian, has no connection to Alaska whatsoever. He just got tired adding every library in New York City.
Labels: authors, book world, bookstores, librarything local, new feature, publicists, publishers
posted by Tim at 9:50 AM
34 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hey Tim, I quoted you in an article I wrote about online publishing:
http://www.writinghood.com/Online-Writing/Online-Novels.88282
Hope that's okay.
Keep up the good work!
Dan
This is awesome! I can't wait to get in and start playing around!
This is so exciting!
This comment has been removed by the author.
It might be nice to have a sort of super-form, by which one might add multiple locations at a time. This'd be especially useful for, for example, loading in the 20 or so locations of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, to say nothing of larger library systems. . .
This is very, very cool. Heh, I see Australia has no book stores yet.
I'm being very unsystematic about my adding.
Another vote for adding multiple locations - some of our bookshop chains share phone numbers as well, the repeated cutting and pasting is going to get old fast.
You mention that one of your "main planned improvements" is "RSS Feeds", but you don't say what that means.
Do you mean:
(a) Putting out RSS Feeds of things in LTLocal? This'd be pretty cool.
(b) Capturing RSS feeds of events and such put out by libraries, such as Ann Arbor District Library's events feed, for import into LTL? This'd be awesome.
NICE! This looks very useful! Thanks!
Ok, potential Hawai'i visitors: I've added three used bookstores to the system. One less excuse!
Can I say I still await the promised "Collections" feature? How does this factor into Collections?
Gilroy
aquila1nz, there are at three Australian bookstores in LT Local, because I listed them myself!
It's easy to add them, why not start with your own favourites? ;)
I'd love to be able to integrate this with my library---a field for "purchase location" to go along with "date purchased" would be awesome.
What you've already got is amazing, though. I love this new feature!
This is SOOO awesome! I was just talking to people about the need for something like this in Chicago yesterday and discussing mashups today. The internet really does read my mind and you guys are the best psychics I know. :)
Ohhh... I just want to say, I'd been assuming all along it would be about local bookshops, and it would be US-only -- and I'm delighted to be wrong! Thank you!
Hey hey! Love this idea. I could get addicted to adding events. One recommendation. Because libraries often have the sort of events that continue over a period of time, like a series of seminars or an art exhibition, could you adjust the "add events" form to reflect that?
For example, one of the local libraries is hosts a monthly art exhibition of some kind. But if I put "March 1st" as the starting date, it will show up as a past rather than a continuing event.
A slightly different example is the seminar. These occur on a series of dates and I'm loathe to enter every single date for these things, not to mention the fact that it causes unnecessary clutter. Maybe there could be a way to enter multiple dates for a single event?
Thanks so much for adding this feature! I'm off to tell my local librarians.
Hi Tim,
Love the idea! Added about 20 venues and a trial event, blogged it, and talked it up around my library this morning and with an independent bookseller friend of mine.
You da man!
~Steve
Antwerp *HOLLAND*?? I'm very sorry but you definitely need to correct that to Belgium. Yes, during weekends we get a lot of Dutch tourists and sometimes it feels like we're suddenly in another country, but Antwerp is definitely in Belgium.
That said, it's an awesome feature!
Oh - my - God. I'm so sorry. If I'd written it, I think I would have caught it. But I should have noticed my URL was idiotic.
Correcting. Don't anyone tell either country's citizens!
Am not a programmer, but this looks to me like a very smooth piece of code. When even a non-coding person like me is a little awed by the work that has gone into it I think Chris can be a little pleased with himself!
It would be cool if one of the features to come was to rank the other local LTers by how close your libraries match. Like the "Members with your books" part of your profile, but only for those close to your location. That way we might be able to meet others who share our interests in person.
Yeah, I agree with that one.
That ranking thing would be pretty interesting.
I have a book club that meets at a library but isn't officially associated with the library. Would it be appropriate to add that under library events or is there a better way to list it? Or, are book clubs even an appropriate thing to list as an event?
I think it's fine, as long as you make the connection clear. The bookclub has to be open, I'd say.
I love poodlerat's idea of linking book to place of purchase.
umm, wow you guys rock ...
i quickly added a command to our bot in #code4lib
Also, have you guys considered adding some hCal
microformat goodness to these pages?
Hi...I was trying to access LibraryThing Local when Safari (v1.3.2) quit. Thrice!
Help?
What constitutes a "book store"? Is it *any* place that sells *any* kind of book, even if there's no variety?
The reason I ask is: someone who appears not to be "local" to me is adding [one particular chain of] stores in my area that aren't book stores per se. And while the store may contain books, they are only of one type. These wouldn't be places to find Don Quixote or even a dictionary. They aren't what (I believe) one would typically call a "book store."
So, what to do? Nothing, and let anyone add any place they want as long as it sells rectangular objects with pages? Do comic book stores count? Do bible warehouses? I'd rather not get into a fussing match with other users if their venue additions are deleted (which seems to be the only recourse), especially if they are thousands of miles away.
Just curious as to your opinion on the matter. I think this is a great idea, but would hate to see it degrade.
You have a recourse. We have a standing group for discussing these questions. What do you want, a formal review process.
That said, my inclination is to allow it. Specialty bookstores are still bookstores. The Grolier book shop in Cambridge only sells poetry, so you won't find any Don Quixote there. But no one would deny it's a bookstore. (Heck, doesn't Hay on Wye have a bookstore that only sells Soviet history?)
From my perspective, comic stores sell a lot of books, and a place that sells religious books also sells books. I even added an "adult book store" although, having never been in it, I don't know how many books they really sell.
Thanks, Tim. I wasn't looking to create more bureaucracy. I was merely wondering if there was an (even if arbitrarily set) definition. I'm not sure the point of group discussion if there's no "final say" on the matter, as numerous people just stating opinions doesn't really lead anywhere. I don't consider grocery stores or mega-marts to be bookstores, but, hey, they do sell books. So I understand the taking the neutral perspective of putting the entirety of "here are places that sell books (adult, religious, or otherwise)" out there, and letting individuals decide where they want to frequent. I just kinda cocked my head to think of some of these places as "bookstores." Perhaps the concept is just more special to me than I knew! :)
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
The groups do tend to form "policy" over time. Certainly the combiners group has been useful there. Mostly they're good for surfacing the edge cases I never thought about.
What the feature needs beyond this is a way to "ignore" venues you don't want to hear about—and maybe events too.
LibraryThing,
I could not figure out how to leave my feedback elsewhere. I just logged on and found out that I am not able to add any more books as I have reached the "free limit" of 200 books. To enter more, I must subscribe for a yearly fee (probably auto renews unless I go and explicitly opt-out).
Unfortunately for you, I was not informed about the "free for the first 200 books" limit prior to my spending hours and hours entering the 211 books I could recall off the top of my head I had read. Perhaps your warning was "hidden" or intentionally non-obvious. For me, that is the same as not being informed. For you it is the same effect, I am departing your service.
I have absolutely no intention of paying you for the priviledge of my updating my own list of books. Are you freakin INSANE?! Good luck with your model (ROTFLMAO - still living in the 1990's with your charging models, I can see).
Just to be clear, I have deleted all of my books and intend for my account to go dormant.
Thank you for the great idea. I am saddened you chose to charge the $10 a month. I don't think I am the only client who feels this way. I am just one in a hundred that is vocal about my choice.
Jim
For a response to that comment, posted on ten blog posts, despite the fact that ever team member's email is posted on the blog and there are whole groups devoted to feedback, see http://www.librarything.com/blog/2008/03/all-things-considered-does-librarything.php .
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