Flash-Mob Cataloging

I've just created a group dedicated to Flash-Mob Cataloging. Flash-Mob Cataloging is when a horde of LibraryThing members descend on some small library with laptops and CueCat barcode scanners, catalog their books in LibraryThing, eat some pizza, talk some talk and leave them with a gleaming new LibraryThing catalog.

Why do it? There are many small libraries that use LibraryThing as their online catalog--museums, organizations, churches, schools, synagogues, temples, even some embassies! It's an easy cheap solution to library automation. (More on organizational LibraryThing accounts here.) And having a flash-mob do the cataloging makes it easy and fun to do the data entry! Emphasis on the fun, trust me.

We've done two so far (Rhode Island Audubon Society and St. John's Church in Beverly MA), to great success. Both were in New England because, well, that's where the most LibraryThing employees are located. But the concept isn't limited by location! Anyone can organize one--hence, the new Flash-Mob Cataloging group. So come join us and plan your own flash-mob event. We'll help you get organized, blog it for you so you can get the word out, and we'll even send you some CueCats, tshirts, and laptop stickers to give away.

Flash-mob cataloging: We did it!

We did it! Eighteen flash-mob catalogers descended upon the Audubon Society of Rhode Island and left having cataloged a wonderful 2,500-book library (available here).

I've posted my photos here. (UPDATE: link is here.) Jeremy has a nice blog post and some photos. Brian, the "Swiss Army Librarian," posted his photos here.

For me the highlights were:

• The diversity of people—LibraryThing nuts, local librarians, Audubon people.
• The Audubon people were grateful, if a little stunned. Katya, who drove five hours to get there, floored them.
  
• The Audubon library had its own bespoke classification system--I'm trying to get hold of it. They translated it to tags, which rebellious LibraryThingers added to as necessary (ie., no moths, pshaw!)
  
• The couple—librarian, programmer—who competed to do the most books. The programmer won. How did he do it? "I pretended I was killing orcs." With reference to multi-volume sets (echoing Gimli) "It only counts as one!"
  
• It was great showing one retired librarian to cataloging books on LibraryThing and have him say "That's it?"
  
• The books were different. Our last flash-mob cataloging effort was for an Episcopal church, which had a lot of overlap with my library and interests. The Audubon Society shared only two of those books, and only one with me (The Diversity of Life). My dad's (partial) library overlapped a lot more.
  
• What do we make of the Personality of insects? Carl Sandburg also had a copy. But LCSH does not allow "Personality" to be so subdivided. Species-ists!
  
• Most Legacy Libraries share no books. Darwin and Hemingway do, of course. And Walker Percy who has, I think, the best library of the Legacy Libraries, excepting maybe Jefferson.
  
• As Jeremy points out in the notes, Audubon shares with Ian Flemming James Bond's Birds of the West Indies. (Yes, that's where he got the name.)
• Again, Katya did all the "hard" cataloging, including two not in WorldCat.
  
• Books with rulers. News to me.
  
• Taxidermy animals. My son, Liam, should have been there.
  
• Mike and I fixed bugs in real time--and pushing collections (again) by mistake. (We pushed a major speed-up for the Audubon library alone; I'll be looking at extending it to all members.)

Next time we do this, we need to plan for a group-wide dinner/drinks afterward. With no group event, Mike, Jeremy, Katya and I headed to Cafe of India in Harvard Square for dinner, and a brief prowl of Harvard Book Store. Mike and I learned a lot, as usual. If librarianship were to be extinguished from the earth, I bet Jeremy and Katya could bring it back--with all the rigor it ever had (although it would be friendlier to tags).

Thanks to everyone who participated. You gave a day's worth of your time, with only a CueCat and a t-shirt in return--and the knowledge that naturalists throughout Rhode Island will be able to search the Audubon library from home, something many public libraries in New England still don't allow!

What's next? With a church and an Audubon society under our belt, I want to do something different, like a historical society.* Katya and Jeremy both had good ideas there--something in Maine perhaps? Stay tuned!

Flash-Mob Cataloging Party: Rhode Island Audubon Society

It's time for another cataloging flash-mob*! This time we're heading to the Audubon Society of Rhode Island to add their small lending collection to LibraryThing.

LibraryThing members can help catalog around 2,000 items at the beautiful Powder Mill Ledges Wildlife Refuge, where I'm told we can take a nice walk for a break if the weather cooperates.



Need a little motivation? Read about our previous flash mob cataloging party in November here.
* The LibraryThing wiki page for the event.
* The day: Saturday, February 21st.
* The time: TBD, probably 10:00 a.m. till 4:00 p.m., but come whenever you're able.
* The place: Rhode Island Audubon Society Powder Mill Ledges Wildlife Refuge, 12 Sanderson Road, Smithfield, RI (Google map)
* Lunch will be provided by the Audubon Society

RSVP to sonya (at) librarything.com.



*What's a flash mob?

February Early Reviewer books

The February batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We've got 68 books this month, and a grand total of 1760 copies to give out.

(Not enough books to choose from, you say? Check out our new Member Giveaway program as well. Member Giveaways is like Early Reviewers, but isn't limited to select publishers--any author or member can post books! We launched it last week, and currently there are 285 copies of 70 books being given away. Combined with the February batch of Early Reviewer books, that's 2045 copies of 138 different books available right now!)

First, make sure to sign up (one sign up for both Early Reviewers and Member Giveaways). If you've already signed up, please check your mailing address and make sure it's correct. Then request away!

The list of available Early Reviewer books is here:
http://www.librarything.com/er/list

The deadline to request a copy from the February batch of Early Reviewers books is Wednesday, February 25th at 6PM EST.

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month's batch of Early Reviewer books has publishers who can send books to the US, Canada, the UK, Israel, Australia, France and Germany. Make sure to check the flags by each book to see if it can be sent to your country.

Thanks to all the publishers participating this month!

St. Martin's Press	Candlewick	Henry Holt and Company
Tyndale House Publishers	Crossway	Bethany House
Beacon Press	Springboard Press	Doubleday Canada
Hyperion Books	Firecrest Books	PublicAffairs
Other Press	DiaMedica	HarperCollins
Faber and Faber	Harper	Bond Street Books
DK Publishing	Demos Medical Publishing	Orbit Books
Picador	Grand Central Publishing	W.W. Norton
Springer	The Permanent Press	Hampton Roads Publishing Company
Shambhala	MSI Press	Pomegranate
Atria Books	Curbstone Press	St. Martin's Minotaur
Andrews McMeel Publishing	Ballantine Books	Orca Book Publishers
Tarcher	B&H Publishing Group