Leveraging LibraryThing:

Adding uncontrolled vocabulary to your catalogue

Niamh Walker-Headon BA, H Dip LIS, ALAI

Systems Librarian – ITT Dublin

Why Library Thing• New web site

– Introducing Web 2.0• Adding interactivity

• Options explored– Star Ratings on web site already – Add on supplied by LMS supplier– Aquabrowser– Library Thing

The debate• Review of the options

– Star Ratings on web site already • Not really intuitive

– Add on supplied by LMS supplier• Not yet ready and anticipated cost is not yet known

– (Wanted a solution in 2007)

More debate…– Aquabrowser

• Monthly subscription, costing

Outcome of the debate– Library Thing

• Looked like an interesting interim option– Annual subscription > Very reasonable– Already widely used online

» Personal libraries, reading communities, etc.

• Examples later

Uncontrolled vocabulary• Debate about uncontrolled vocabulary

– Ongoing• Current controlled vocabulary not changing as fast

as needed

– Did not want to make any changes to our MARC records

• Like the idea of FRBR, but it’s still not finalised– Library thing links to similar titles

FRBR??!!***• FRBR: Functional Requirements for

Bibliographic Records – Idea is to change how catalogues present

records so that records associated with one piece of intellectual property appear together

• MORE ABOUT FRBR: http://www.frbr.org/

Library thing??@@!!

• Library thing started out as a web based interactive web 2.0 application for personal use– There has been a librarian involved since the

early days

• It has since branched out into the library arena

What is library thing - personal• “LibraryThing helps you create a library-

quality catalog of your books.

• And because everyone catalogs online, they also catalog together.

• LibraryThing connects people based on the books they share.”

• From http://www.librarything.com/tour/ – It is very interactive, and builds communities fast

Library thing – personalhttp://www.librarything.com/tour/

Tags are added here by personal

users

What Library thing doeshttp://www.librarything.com/tour/3

Tags????• Tags are:

• “Tags, a type of metadata involving the association of descriptors with objects. “– From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tags

• Also used on blogs, social networking sites and wikis

Tag clouds?!!***• “A tag cloud (or weighted list in visual design)

is a visual depiction of content tags used on a website. Often, more frequently used tags are depicted in a larger font or otherwise emphasized, while the displayed order is generally alphabetical.[1] Thus both finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity is possible. Selecting a single tag within a tag cloud will generally lead to a collection of items that are associated with that tag”– From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_cloud

More about Library Thing- personal• “LibraryThing knows how books connect,

providing some of the best recommendations on the web.

• LibraryThing can analyze your entire catalog and come up with 100 or so books you might want to check out.

• The UnSuggester will give you humorous recommendations of books you probably wouldn't enjoy.”

• From: http://www.librarything.com/tour/6

What does LibraryThing for Libraries do?

• “Give your patrons exciting new content, including recommendations and tag clouds.

• Let your patrons take part, with reviews, ratings and tags. Keep the control you want.

• Enhance your catalog with just a few lines of HTML. Works with any OPAC and requires no back-end integration. Really.

• Draw on the collective intelligence of your patrons and LibraryThing members. “

• From http://www.librarything.com/forlibraries/

What does it give users• When a catalogue record matches an item in

the library thing database– “Book recommendations. Show high-quality

"recommended" or "similar" books. – Tag browsing. Give your patrons the power and

flexibility of searching and browsing your books by tags.

– Other editions and translations. Link related editions and translations of the same work. "FRBR"-ize your catalog with a few lines of HTML. “

• From http://www.librarything.com/forlibraries/

In your catalogue, by title.

Using tag clouds

Coming soon...• User reviews. Access hundreds of

thousands of reviews and let your patrons add their own.

• User tagging. Let your patrons tag. Tags can be shared across all participating libraries.

• User ratings. Add our ratings and give patrons the ability to rate books.

• From http://www.librarything.com/forlibraries/tour/2

How good is it?• LibraryThing for Libraries draws on

LibraryThing.com

• Library thing say they can enhance 50% or more of your ISBNs– ITT Dublin submitted 20,000 isbn’s. Library

thing had matched for over 15,000 of them

What about the Tags

• LibraryThing members have added more than 23 million tags to books

• Library thing have killed all the "bad" tags– Laundered you might say…

Getting Set up - Timeline• March / April 2007

– Discussion and decision to investigate further

• May / June 2007– Debate and investigation– Institute Librarian attends Tim Spalding's’ address to IIUG

• July 2007– Costing sought

• August 2007– Order created– Library thing on test server

• October 2007– Library thing went live – with new library web site.

How does it work? Exporting

• Step one:– Export ISBN, title and author information in

tab-delimited format and send to Library thing• This is a tab delimited file based on your marc

records

How does it work ? Coding• Step two: Paste the HTML

– Add a few lines of HTML to your catalogue’s template

• You may need someone else to do this for you• For us this was the bib_display.html file

– <div id="ltfl_tagbrowse" class="ltfl"></div>– <div id="ltfl_related" class="ltfl">– <div id="ltfl_similars" class="ltfl"></div>

How does it work? Other Web pages• And we added the ‘widget’ provided by library thing to the

botlogo.html file• This file appears at the bottom of every page

– <script src="http://www.librarything.com/forlibraries/widget.js?id=73-1846465501" type="text/javascript"></script><noscript>This page contains enriched content visible when JavaScript is enabled or by clicking here for<a href="http://www.librarything.com/forlibraries/noscript.php?id=73-1846465501&accessibility=1"> Library thing data </a>.</noscript>

» Each LibraryThing for Libraries "widget" is fully customizable.

» Control how it works and how it looks» We used css to make it match our catalogue

How does it work? Testing• Step three: Test and go!• Testing

– Without your users noticing any changes– We did this on our testing server for the new web site – Play around with where you want the information to

appear by changing the location of the html code in your template

• Turn it on. – Turn it off anytime too

• This was important for us

Additional points of access• Tags

– Copy status tab– Click on a tag (word) ad you are brought to a

list of titles with the same tag• Subject headings are ignored in the main by our

users– See if Tags are more noticed

» So far they seem to be

FRBR type access points• Related items

– More details tab– Translations and other EDITIONS linked

directly within the catalogue

• Similar items– Similar item tab– Other related titles linked directly within the

catalogue

Examples from ITT Dublin• Search examples:

– Word > Lord of the rings– Title > Blue ocean strategy– Author > Feist, Raymond E.

» Olivier, Jamie

– Subject > Ansel Adams

Questions?• Find out more:

– http://www.librarything.com – http://www.librarything.com/forlibraries

• See LibraryThing for Libraries at– http://library.ittdublin.ie– http://cat.danburylibrary.org/record=1168934 – http://witcat.wit.ie/search~/a?searchtype=X&s

earcharg=fellowship+of+the+ring&SORT=D

Tag cloud- Fellowship of the ring

Recommendations from Catalogue

Linked to another title

Other edition in catalogue

Record for other edition

Similar items – Trilogy titles

Straight to Return of the King

Full record – controlled headings