1

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE VIABILITY OF LIBRARYTHING FOR

PROMOTIONAL AND USER ENGAGEMENT PURPOSES IN LIBRARIES

A study submitted in partial fulfilment of

the requirements for the degree of Master

of Arts in Librarianship

at

THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

by

ANNA RICHARDS

September 2012

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Abstract

Background

Use of Web 2.0 tools by libraries has increased rapidly in recent years but at the same time there are

always new Web 2.0 websites being developed, with Phil Bradley listing over 100 on his website

(Bradley, 2010). LibraryThing is one such website. It allows users to catalogue their books using data

drawn from sources such as Amazon and the Library of Congress and has other facilities such as

tagging and interest groups that members can join. As this website is aimed at the same audience as a

library it is an ideal tool for libraries to consider using and this is why this study studied its value for

libraries.

Aim

This study aimed to evaluate whether LibraryThing is a valuable tool for libraries to use for

promotional and user engagement purposes. This was achieved through three research objectives:

Identify the ways in which LibraryThing could be used by libraries to promote services or engage

with users; Identify how libraries are currently using LibraryThing and the perceived usefulness of

the website to librarians who use it; Evaluate the overall value of LibraryThing for libraries.

Method

This study used a sequential mixed methods qual QUAN design. It consisted of 3 phases. Phase 1

was the identification of LibraryThing features that could be used by libraries for user engagement or

promotional purposes, which was achieved though the literature review and the researcher’s own

knowledge of LibraryThing. Phase 2 consisted of 3 semi-structured, exploratory interviews, which

informed the creation of a questionnaire for Phase 3. This final phase was the main method for data

collection.

Results

Several uses of LibraryThing for promotional and user engagement purposes were identified in Phase

1 of the study and the interviews in Phase 2 supplied several answers that were incorporated into the

questionnaire. There were 51 complete answers to the questionnaire. The main findings were that the

most popular reason libraries used LibraryThing was to promote the library or library stock, with

most respondents using it specifically to highlight collections of books. Monitoring of patron usage

was low and many respondents had not received feedback from users, though of those that had, 94%

(15/16) had received positive feedback. The most common advantages of using LibraryThing

identified were that it is easy to use, it is remotely accessible, and it has a low cost, whilst its main

drawbacks are the 200 book limit for free accounts and the fact that it is a third-party site. Finally,

although only 69% (35/51) of respondents thought that LibraryThing added enough value to spend

extra time on it, 90% (46/51) felt that LibraryThing was a useful tool for libraries.

Conclusion

LibraryThing has most value as a promotional tool for libraries, particularly for promoting specific

collections of books. It is recommended that libraries use it to promote whichever collection of books

would be of most value to their users and that they use the LibraryThing widget to incorporate their

account into their website or blog. It is also recommended that libraries actively monitor patron usage

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of their LibraryThing account or request feedback so that they can ensure that LibraryThing provides

a truly valuable service for their library.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the people who gave their time to help me with my

interviews and who responded to my questionnaire. This literally could not have

been done without your help.

I would also like to thank my supervisor for her help throughout this whole process.

You have been a great support and one I could not have done without.

Finally, my thanks go to my mother whose love and encouragement have sustained

me throughout this Masters degree.

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Table of Contents

List of figures ................................................................................................................ 7

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 8

1.1 Background .......................................................................................................... 8

1.2 Aims .................................................................................................................... 9

1.3 Objectives ............................................................................................................ 9

2. Literature review ..................................................................................................... 10

2.1 Web 2.0 and libraries ......................................................................................... 10

2.1.1 Specific Web 2.0 tools used by libraries .................................................... 11

2.1.2 Assessing the relevance of Web 2.0 tools. ................................................. 14

2.2 Discussion of LibraryThing in library literature ............................................... 16

2.3 Other social reading sites ................................................................................... 20

3. Methodology ............................................................................................................ 22

3.1 Identification of LibraryThing features ............................................................. 24

3.2 Identifying organisational LibraryThing accounts ............................................ 25

3.3 Interviews .......................................................................................................... 26

3.4 Questionnaire survey ......................................................................................... 29

3.5 Ethics ................................................................................................................. 30

3.6 Data Analysis ..................................................................................................... 31

3.7 Summary ............................................................................................................ 32

4. Results ..................................................................................................................... 33

4.1 Phase 1: Identification of LibraryThing features ............................................... 33

4.2 Phase 2: Interviews ............................................................................................ 34

4.2.1 Summary..................................................................................................... 40

4.3 Phase 3: Questionnaire survey ........................................................................... 41

4.3.1 Summary..................................................................................................... 58

5. Discussion ................................................................................................................ 58

6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 66

6.1 Recommendations to improve the study ........................................................... 68

6.3 Recommendations for further study .................................................................. 70

Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 71

Appendix A ................................................................................................................. 78

Appendix B .................................................................................................................. 80

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Consent form ........................................................................................................... 80

Information sheet ..................................................................................................... 81

Ethics application form ............................................................................................ 83

Appendix C .................................................................................................................. 89

Interview questions .................................................................................................. 89

Interview transcripts ................................................................................................ 90

Interview 1 (Pilot)................................................................................................ 90

Interview 2 ........................................................................................................... 98

Interview 3 ......................................................................................................... 103

Appendix D ............................................................................................................... 113

Questionnaire ......................................................................................................... 113

Questionnaire results ............................................................................................. 118

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List of figures

Figure 1: The research design……………………………………………………..23

Figure 2: Ways that LibraryThing can be used by libraries ……………….... 33/661

Figure 3: The type of library respondents worked in ……………………………..41

Figure 4: Respondents reasons for deciding to use LibraryThing…………………43

Figure 5: Contingency table showing the relationship between library type and why

the library chose to use LibraryThing………………………………………..45

Figure 6: How respondents’ libraries use LibraryThing ………………………….46

Figure 7: Contingency table showing the relationship between library type and how

a library uses LibraryThing…………………………………………………..47

Figure 8: How often respondents interact with their LibraryThing account ……...48

Figure 9: Whether respondents monitor patron usage of LibraryThing …………..49

Figure 10: Whether respondents had received feedback regarding their LibraryThing

account ……………………………………………………………………...50

Figure 11: Uses of LibraryThing deemed useful by respondents ………………...51

Figure 12: Contingency table showing the relationship between library type and

LibraryThing uses deemed useful by respondents…………………………..52

Figure 13: Whether respondents thinking LibraryThing adds enough value to spend

time using it …………………………………………………………………53

Figure 14: Benefits of LibraryThing ……………………………………………...54

Figure 15: Drawbacks of LibraryThing …………………………………………...55

Figure 16: Whether respondents think LibraryThing is a useful tool for

libraries ………………………………………………………………………57

1 Reproduced on page 67

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1. Introduction

The use of Web 2.0 tools and websites, also known as social media, in libraries is a

topic which has generated a lot of discussion, with a large uptake of Web 2.0 tools

by all manner of libraries in the last few years, from public libraries to academic

ones. Phil Bradley, President of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information

Professionals, lists well over one hundred different Web 2.0 tools and new ones are

being created all the time (Bradley, 2010). With so many different tools to choose

from it is necessary to ensure that they are truly useful for libraries before library

professionals invest time in them. Therefore this dissertation aims to study one such

tool, LibraryThing, outlining ways in which it could be used by libraries and

evaluating its overall value for libraries.

1.1 Background

LibraryThing is a website which allows users to catalogue their own books and

connect to other users through these books (LibraryThing, n.d.-a). Users search for a

book they own and LibraryThing uses data from various sources, including Amazon

and the Library of Congress, to provide records which users then personalise with

tags, ratings and reviews (LibraryThing, n.d.-b). It also provides recommendations

using a number of different methods and provides a facility for members to create

groups in which users can discuss any number of topics (LibraryThing, n.d.-b). This

book- and reading- orientated website provides a ready audience for libraries and it

is for this reason that it is being studied. The LibraryThing team are already working

with libraries through their LibraryThing for Libraries and LibraryThing Anywhere

developments. LibraryThing for Libraries uses LibraryThing book data to add

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reviews, tags etc. to a library Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC), along with

other features and LibraryThing Anywhere creates a mobile compatible version of

an OPAC (LibraryThing, n.d.-c). As these developments are working with libraries

to develop their OPAC provision they will not be discussed in this dissertation.

Instead the focus is on the features provided to website users and on the ways in

which libraries could use these features to promote their current services or for user

engagement.

1.2 Aims

The aim of this research is to evaluate the usefulness of the LibraryThing website for

promotional and user engagement purposes for libraries. To do this the study will

investigate not only the different ways that LibraryThing could be used by libraries

but also how it is currently being used and the attitudes of the librarians who use it

professionally towards its value for their library. The research will focus solely on

the LibraryThing website and librarians will be asked only for their professional

opinion about LibraryThing rather than their views on using it for personal reasons.

1.3 Objectives

These aims will be achieved through the following objectives:

1. Identify the ways in which LibraryThing could be used by libraries to

promote services or engage with users.

2. Identify how libraries are currently using LibraryThing and the perceived

usefulness of the website to librarians who use it.

3. Evaluate the overall value of LibraryThing for libraries.

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2. Literature review

This literature review will begin with a general overview of Web 2.0 use in libraries

in order to provide a context for LibraryThing and this investigation. It will cover

both how Web 2.0 is or could be used generally by libraries and also recent broad

studies of which Web 2.0 tools are being used in libraries and how they are being

used. It will then cover library literature concerning the use of the LibraryThing

website by libraries. It will also discuss other websites which provide similar

services, namely Goodreads and Shelfari, to provide a point of comparison.

2.1 Web 2.0 and libraries

O’Reilly (2005) described Web 2.0 as an interactive way of using the web, where

users are encouraged to add content and interact with each other, which is then used

to improve a service. As LibraryThing is an example of such a service, it is

appropriate to discuss the use of Web 2.0 services in libraries. Several advantages to

using Web 2.0 tools within library services have been found. Stuart (2010, in

Tripathi & Kumar, 2010) argues that Web 2.0 tools help to bridge the gap between

libraries and their users, increasing communication between the two parties, with

Buigues-Garcia and Gimenez- Charnet (2012) arguing that they allow the library to

expand beyond the physical library building. Chua and Goh (2010) also argue that

increased communication will lead to greater collaboration between librarians and

users. Moreover, Farkas (2007, in Tripathi & Kumar, 2010) argues that Web 2.0

tools can encourage users to become more actively involved in library activities by,

for example, submitting reviews of library resources. Web 2.0 tools have also

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increased the ways that users can provide feedback to libraries and thus help library

staff to improve the services (Mahmood & Richardson Jr., 2011).

2.1.1 Specific Web 2.0 tools used by libraries

There have been several studies of library use of Web 2.0 tools. Some studies have

looked at the use of only one Web 2.0 tool, such as Clyde’s (2004) study of blog use.

For the purposes of this study only those studies which provide an overview of

library use of Web 2.0 tools will be covered, since this will give a good indication of

which tools are popular and what they are used for and will provide context for this

study. Furthermore, only studies published in the last two years will be covered, in

order to ensure that a relatively current picture of library activity in this area is

provided, since the rate of change in this area is high.

Chua and Goh (2010) found that the most popular Web 2.0 tools used in both public

and academic libraries in North America, Asia and Europe were blogs, RSS feeds

and instant messaging services, with social networks, wikis and the use of tagging

falling behind. In studies of academic libraries only, instant messaging is often

found to be popular, along with RSS feeds and blogs (Harinarayana & Raju, 2010;

Kim & Abbas, 2010; Mahmood & Richardson Jr., 2011; Nesta and Mi, 2011;

Pacheco, Kuhn & Grant, 2010; Tripathi & Kumar, 2010). Converesly, library use of

wikis, podcasts and vodcasts, 2

and tagging facilities has been found to be low

(Harinarayana & Raju, 2010; Kim & Abbas, 2010; Tripathi & Kumar, 2010).

2 Video equivalent of podcast (Oxford Dictionaries, 2012a;b).

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Han and Liu (2010) studied Web 2.0 use in Chinese university libraries and found

both differences and similarities from other studies. They found that out of the

universities studied, 71% had new generation OPACS which included features such

as similar item suggestions and user ratings of items. Nesta and Mi (2011) also

found that next generation catalogues were the most popular ‘Web 2.0’ tool in Hong

Kong. The only other study that mentions this feature is Mahmood and Richardson

Jr. (2011), who claim that some of the libraries in their study offered tagging in their

OPACs, though the exact figure is unknown as this feature is grouped with others in

their study, under ‘social bookmarking/tagging’. Han and Liu’s (2010) study also

found that RSS feeds were the second most popular tool with blogs, instant

messaging, social networking sites, and wikis not being very popular.

More recent studies show a change in library Web 2.0 use. Mahmood and

Richardson Jr. (2011) found that social networking sites were quite popular in

academic libraries, whereas older studies found quite low usage (Chua & Goh, 2010;

Han & Liu, 2010; Harinarayana & Raju, 2010; Kim & Abbas, 2010; Nesta & Mi,

2011; Xu, Ouyang, & Chu, 2009). Buigues-Garcia and Gimenez-Chornet (2012,

p.10) also found that the most popular Web 2.0 tool used by national libraries was

Facebook, with “RSS feeds, virtual or digital libraries, [and] Twitter” following. In

terms of studies covering libraries other than academic libraries, Cragg’s (2010)

study of business libraries use of Web 2.0 tools found similar findings to academic

libraries in that blogs were the most popular tool. Conversely, the second most

popular tool was microblogging on Twitter and the least popular were instant

messaging and start pages, showing that there is a different pattern of use across

different library sectors.

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The most common way in which the above tools are utilized is to provide news to

users, either specific library news or news relating to a parent institution. Such use

has been found for RSS feeds (Chua & Goh, 2010; Mahmood & Richardson Jr.,

2011; Tripathi & Kumar, 2010), blogs (including microblogging) (Cragg, 2010;

Mahmood & Richardson Jr., 2011; Tripathi & Kumar, 2010), social networking sites

(Mahmood & Richardson Jr., 2011) and video and audio sharing sites (Mahmood &

Richardson Jr., 2011). Both blogs and social networking sites are used as a user

engagement and communication tool as well, allowing libraries to discuss topics of

interest to users or to share media easily (Chua & Goh, 2010; Mahmood &

Richardson Jr., 2011). Instant messaging is used to provide reference or enquiry

services (Chua & Goh, 2010; Cragg, 2010; Tripathi & Kumar, 2010), with one study

finding some libraries using it specifically to provide homework help for students

(Chua & Goh, 2010).

Often libraries use Web 2.0 tools to provide study and library guides, or study

resources, for students, including using wikis, podcasts or vodcasts, and video and

audio sharing sites (Chua & Goh, 2010; Mahmood & Richardson Jr., 2011; Tripathi

& Kumar, 2010). Wikis are also used internally by libraries, for example, to share

committee minutes (Cragg, 2010; Mahmood & Richardson Jr., 2011). Anttiroiko

and Savolainen (2011) looked at literature relating to public libraries using Web 2.0

tools as well as examining the websites of libraries known to them and categorised

the way these tools were used accordingly. They found that instant messenger

services, RSS feeds and Twitter were used to communicate with users quickly, with

instant messaging services being specifically used for reference services (Anttiroiko

& Savolainen, 2011). Blogs, wikis, Youtube and Flickr were used for content

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sharing, whilst social networking sites were used to provide news to users

(Anttiroiko & Savolainen, 2011). So we can see that Web 2.0 tools are used both as

a promotional tool by libraries and as a communication tool and a way for the

library to provide new services or resources. Thus it is appropriate to examine how

LibraryThing could be used for promotional or user engagement purposes, since this

is how libraries are generally using Web 2.0 tools. A full list of the different ways

libraries are using Web 2.0 tools as found in the literature can be seen in Appendix

A.

2.1.2 Assessing the relevance of Web 2.0 tools.

Millar (2010) identifies the need to be evaluative of any new ventures made by an

institution which is using a new Web 2.0 application. As she rightly argues, any

tools used by an institution need to support its users needs and the objectives of the

institution (Millar, 2010). Moreover, the advantages need to be balanced against the

cost to the institution in regards to staff training and time as well as any outright

costs incurred (Millar, 2010). This is seconded by Tripathi and Kumar (2010) and

Koltay (2010) who argue that Web 2.0 tools should be used only if they are relevant

and add value. Kim and Abbas (2010) and Nesta and Mi (2011) found that not many

library users used the Web 2.0 tools implemented by the libraries in their studies,

suggesting a need to ascertain whether a tool is found to be useful by users before

investing in it. Nesta and Mi (2011) are particularly critical of the lack of user

engagement engendered by Web 2.0 library initiatives and the lack of critical

evaluation of Web 2.0 tools undertaken by libraries before they begin using them.

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This need to be evaluative of new Web 2.0 tools before using them is why this study

will look at not only how LibraryThing could be used but will also attempt to

evaluate whether the value it adds is worth the investment. Within both business and

library literature there are discussions about measuring the Return on Investment

(ROI) of Web 2.0 use (e.g., Fichter & Wisniewski, 2008; Nair, 2011; Romero, 2011;

Solis, 2011). Although it is beyond the scope of this study to discuss methods of

assessing ROI in social media some questions regarding monitoring patron usage

and feedback received will be included in the study. These will not only bring to

light any knowledge that libraries have about the popularity of their use of

LibraryThing but also whether libraries are attempting to evaluate their own use of

Web 2.0 tools.

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2.2 Discussion of LibraryThing in library literature

Many researchers have used LibraryThing in evaluations of the effectiveness of tagging for

indexing and whether tags are suitable additions to a library OPAC (e.g., Bates & Rowley,

2011; Lawson, 2009; Lu, Park & Hu, 2010; Rolla, 2009). Additionally, the creation of

folksonomies has been linked to information literacy competencies, with LibraryThing tags

forming part of this study (Abdulhadi, Clough, & Sen, 2012). The LibraryThing for

Libraries application has also gained some attention as more libraries implement it

(Blumenstein, 2007; Sheehan, 2007; Westcott, Chappell, & Lebel, 2009), with some

researchers focusing again on the addition of tags (Mendes, Quinonez-Skinner & Skaggs,

2009; Webb & Nero, 2009) and others looking at the recommender system that it provides

for libraries (Wakeling, Clough, & Sen, 2012).

There has been some discussion of the use that the LibraryThing website could be to

libraries. Stainthorp (2010) and Jeffries (2008) claim that the range of features

offered by LibraryThing could be very useful for libraries but do not offer any

suggestions about how it could be helpful. Wright and Bass (2010) encourage

librarians to get involved with LibraryThing, as well as other book based social

networking sites, since these sites are where library users are. Eesiem (2007) and

LibraryBug (2008) also feel that LibraryThing would be a good way to connect the

library to its users and LibraryBug (2008) mentions that use of it would increase a

library’s online presence. One of the most basic uses of LibraryThing by libraries is

as a library catalogue, with small libraries, such as the Islington Mill Art Reference

Library using it in such a way (Manchester Lit List, 2010). Such a use of

LibraryThing is suggested by the LibraryThing team (LibraryThing, n.d.-d) and by

many librarians in blogs (e.g., O’Neill, 2009, Secret Library Island, 2010, Yellin,

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2011), although as De La Cruz (2011) highlights, the lack of circulation statistics are

a drawback to using LibraryThing in this way. Similarly, a school library in New

Hampshire uses LibraryThing as a catalogue specifically for the zines held by the

library (Harland, 2009).

Some libraries also use LibraryThing in ways tangential to their services. For

example, Harris (2006) suggests using LibraryThing or adapting LibraryThing

functionality so that students can review books they read in order to help teachers

assess their reader development. Similarly, McMorland, Tolnay and Vick (2010), in

a wider discussion of a public library initiative to help high school students with a

specific assignment, mention that a LibraryThing account was created in which

potentially useful books were inputted and assigned tags. A tag cloud was created

using a LibraryThing widget3 and was added to the project’s website (McMorland et

al., 2010). Although these projects are not examples of libraries using LibraryThing

for their own services they do give examples of how LibraryThing could be used.

Libraries could create specific collections on LibraryThing, highlighting books

related to an event or to create a ‘recommended list’ for library members

(LibraryThing, 2006; Rethlefsen, 2007; Steiner, 2008). For example, at the

University of South Dakota the academic liaison librarians use LibraryThing to

highlight bestsellers in their collection (De Jager-Loftus, 2009) whilst the library at

Mukawongo used it to promote staff recommendations (Mukcomlibrary, 2011).

Similarly, Steiner (2008) argues you could use it to promote new stock, something

done by several libraries (see, for instance, Piermont Library (2011), the Vere

Hamsworth Library (2007) and LibraryThing (2006)). It could also be used to

3 A widget “is a small program that you can easily put on your website, blog, or personalized start

page” (Nations, 2012, paragraph 1). On LibraryThing, widgets can include a changing view of book

covers in your library, tags, or a search box (LibraryThing, n.d.-e)

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promote larger book collections; the Noble Neighborhood [sic] Library has created

separate LibraryThing accounts for books in the mystery, horror and science fiction

genres (Rethlefsen, 2007) and the Mattapan library uses it to promote children’s

literature (LibraryBug, 2008). It has also been suggested that LibraryThing could be

helpful for library book clubs. Starr (2008) mentions using it to create a list of books

for a book club using the various recommendations LibraryThing provides, whilst

Hastings (2009) argues that LibraryThing’s ‘Common Knowledge’ section could

provide additional information about books which may be useful for book

discussions.4 The Groups feature could also host online book clubs, as Lincoln

College library (23 Things Oxford, 2010) and St. Margaret’s School Library have

done (Eesiem, 2007).

Another useful feature is using the tags to create sub-collections within the wider

collection, helping users to find exactly what they need and illuminating the themes

within the text, as done by the Carl A. Pescosolido Library (Rethlefsen, 2007).

Libraries could then add a widget to their website or blog to bring these collections

to the attention of their users, as was done by McMorland et al. (2010) in their

project, and is suggested in many library blogs (e.g., 23 Things Oxford, 2010;

O’Neill, 2009; Yellin, 2011) and by the LibraryThing team (LibraryThing, 2006;

n.d.-d). Libraries could also encourage users to subscribe to the RSS feed for new

additions to the account in order to bring the information to the user (23 Things

Oxford, 2010; Hastings, 2009; Nuffield College Library, 2010; Rethlefsen, 2007;

Vere Harmsworth Library, 2007; Wyatt, 2007)

4 See, for example, http://www.librarything.com/work/8101931/commonknowledge

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Rethlefsen (2007), Rapp (2011) and Wyatt (2007) suggest that LibraryThing could

be used by librarians to recommend new books for readers. Rapp (2011) claims that

the various different types of recommendations given by LibraryThing could be

used for readers’ advisory sessions, a use also suggested by Abby Blachly, an

employee of LibraryThing (Ishizuka, 2006). Rethlefsen (2007) mentions that

libraries could consult the reviews given by LibraryThing members to help them

judge the merit of a particular title and librarians could even write reviews of books

in their collection for users to consult themselves (LibraryBug, 2008; Steiner, 2008).

Similarly, Wyatt (2007) argues that librarians could create personal accounts which

they then tag and comment on as a tool to help them recommend books for others,

referencing several librarians who already do this. Uniquely, librarians at Boise

State University used LibraryThing internally to organise and track books requested

by faculty (Kozel-Gains & Stoddart, 2009). They liked LibraryThing because it was

easy to use, could be personalised and provided “tagging functionality and

comments fields” (Kozel-Gains & Stoddart, 2009, p. 137). Both Steiner (2008) and

the LibraryThing team (LibraryThing, n.d.-d) also suggest that a library could use

the LibraryThing Local feature, where local book related events are posted, to

publicise any events that the library is holding, and Tay (2010) argues that libraries

should at least monitor their listing in LibraryThing Local to ensure the information

provided is correct.

Not all discussion of library use of LibraryThing has been positive, however.

Feuille-blanche (2011) felt that users would be unlikely to go to another website to

see new acquisitions, a concern shared by Murphy (2010). Seshat Scribe (2010) felt

it held little value for academic libraries, though they did concede that it may be

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valuable for smaller libraries using it as an online catalogue, whilst Birkwood (2011)

thought that the global search facilities for, for example, an author or book, were not

very good. Murphy (2010) was the most critical of the value of LibraryThing for

libraries, expressing concern over the fact that LibraryThing is a third-party website,

which could lead to security issues as well as having a lack of authority, since it

would not be part of the library brand. This shows that not all librarians are

convinced of the value of LibraryThing for libraries, though this discussion was only

conducted through personal blogs and not as a result of an in-depth analysis.

This literature review shows that although there is information regarding the use of

LibraryThing by libraries, no thorough study has been conducted in to the true value

of LibraryThing to libraries and therefore this study fills a gap in the literature.

2.3 Other social reading sites

There are other websites which perform the same function as LibraryThing. One,

Goodreads, has many similar features: you can add books and rate and review them

(O’Leary, 2012). Book pages include a summary (O’Leary, 2012) and there is the

ability to search by genre from a book page as well (Goodreads Inc., 2012a). It is

very socially orientated (Jeffries, 2008), with quizzes, member generated lists and

reviews prominently displayed on a book page (Goodreads Inc., 2012a; O’Leary,

2012). It also has a Community space which is similar to LibraryThing’s Group

feature and members can post blog updates or messages on their home pages

(O’Leary, 2012). It provides recommendations based on your ratings of books in

your collection and on which genres you say you are interested in (Goodreads Inc.,

2012b; O’Leary, 2012). It also provides recommendations on an individual book

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page which are generated automatically on a ‘Readers also enjoyed’ principle

(Goodreads Inc., 2012a; O’Leary, 2012). Additionally, there are links to videos

relating to the book you are viewing on book pages (Jeffries, 2008). Unlike

LibraryThing it is completely free but there are advertisements on book pages

(Jeffries, 2008; O’Leary, 2012). Tagging also appears to play less of role, with no

tags appearing on a book page unlike on LibraryThing (Goodreads Inc., 2012a). In

terms of library use, Rapp (2011) mentions that some libraries have used Goodreads

to host online book clubs and Koppenhaver (2011) uses it personally to provide

library patrons with book reviews, handing out ‘business cards’ with his Goodreads

account name whilst working in the library. In this way he develops relationships

with patrons who can interact with him online as well as at the library (Koppenhaver,

2011). Wyatt (2007) also mentions that it can used to help librarians with readers’

advisory, similar to the way that LibraryThing can, due to its reviews and the ability

for librarians to track and rate their own reading.

Shelfari is owned by Amazon and the price of buying the book through Amazon is

displayed on the book page, which may deter some libraries (Shelfari, 2012a). There

are also advertisements on a book page (Shelfari, 2012a). On a book’s page there is

a synopsis, character and location lists and suggestions of themes present in the book,

which would be helpful for book clubs (Shelfari, 2012a). Recommendations are

provided, based on Amazon purchase data, and books related to the book you are

viewing are displayed, such as books about your book or influenced by it (Shelfari,

2012a). The only obviously community generated recommendations are generated

by asking other Shelfari members whether you should read a book (Jeffries, 2008)

but there are community groups for members (Shelfari, 2012b). There is a widget

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that could be added to a blog or website, which, like LibraryThing’s widget, could

highlight new stock or some other collection of books held by the library (Jeffries,

2008). As with LibraryThing and Goodreads, Rapp (2011) and Wyatt (2007) suggest

that Shelfari could help with readers’ advisory recommendations and at Jaypee

University of Information Technology’s library Shefari is used to highlight new

additions to the library, grouped according to the course they relate to (Ram, Anbu

K, & Kataria, 2011).

Jeffries (2008), who compares all of the above social media sites, concludes that

LibraryThing is of the most use to libraries and the fact that there is much more

discussion of use of LibraryThing in the literature suggests that LibraryThing is the

website of choice for libraries. The lack of advertisements on LibraryThing

compared to Goodreads and Shelfari may also be a contributing factor for libraries.

3. Methodology

This study used a sequential mixed design, as defined by Teddlie and Tashakkori

(2009). Mixed methods is seen by Teddlie and Tashakkori (2009) as an alternative

methodological approach to quantitative or qualitative methodologies. It is a

relatively new approach, defined by Tashakkori and Creswell (2007, p. 4) as

“research in which the investigator collects and analyzes data, integrates the findings

and draws inferences using both qualitative and quantitative approaches or methods

in a single study or program of inquiry.” In terms of a philosophical paradigm,

mixed methodology is associated with pragmatism (Denscombe, 2008; Teddlie &

Tashakkori, 2009) and Denscombe (2008) argues that mixed research needs to

23

indicate how the qualitative and quantitative methods relate to each other, the

sequence of these elements and which has dominance in the research. Using Morse’s

(2003) notation system this study is qual QUAN, as the quantitative aspect of this

study, despite coming sequentially second, is the main data collection method.

Figure1 shows how each method relates to the other, with each stage of the study

informing the next as well as producing results that inform the conclusions of the

study.

Outcome:

Relevant/

suitable features on

LibraryThing

Outcome:

Greater

understanding of

relevant issues

and themes.

Questionnaire

development

Outcome:

A large amount

of data on use of

LibraryThing by

libraries and its

perceived value

Conclusions

Phase 3:Survey

Phase 2:Interviews

Phase 1:Identification

of LibraryThing

features

Research

design

Figure 1: The research design

Phase 1 identifies features of use on LibraryThing for promotional and user

engagement purposes, utilising data from the literature review and the researcher’s

knowledge of LibraryThing. These features are not only central to showing that

LibraryThing can be used by libraries for promotional and user engagement

purposes but they were also used in the interviews and questionnaire, as is discussed

24

later. Phase 2 of the study consisted of several interviews, which helped the

researcher to understand issues relating to library use of LibraryThing and to ensure

that the questions asked in the questionnaire would obtain the data needed, as well

as providing data that informed the overall conclusions of the study. The interviews

also provided answers that were included in the questionnaire to create closed

questions. The final phase, Phase 3, was a questionnaire sent electronically to

libraries with a LibraryThing profile. As this is exploratory or descriptive research,

as defined by Teddlie & Tashakkori (2009), it was necessary to conduct interviews

as these would allow the researcher to gain insight into the attitudes of librarians to

LibraryThing and their reasons for using it, data not widely available in the literature.

However, the literature review highlighted that many libraries using LibraryThing

were based outside of the United Kingdom; if a large amount of data was to be

collected a survey would be a better method of data collection. Therefore using a

mixed methodology was the best way to answer the research question, ensuring that

the study collected the correct data to answer the research question.

3.1 Identification of LibraryThing features

LibraryThing features suitable for library use were identified mainly through the

literature review. It should be noted that the discussion of LibraryThing within

library or librarian maintained blogs was only found after the questionnaire had been

devised and so the results were not directly incorporated into the questionnaire.

However, the only use of LibraryThing not identified in the professional literature

was the use of LibraryThing to host online bookclubs, which had been identified by

the researcher, and most of the criticisms raised were also discussed in the

interviews and so were incorporated into the questionnaire at this stage.

25

3.2 Identifying organisational LibraryThing accounts

In order to identify how libraries are currently using LibraryThing and the views of

librarians who use it professionally (the second objective of the study) it was

necessary to identify libraries that use LibraryThing. These libraries would then be

the sample for the interviews and survey. There is no way of searching or browsing

lists of library accounts on LibraryThing and so libraries’ accounts were identified

through a snowball sampling technique. Originally, only libraries within the UK

were going to be included in the study. However, two factors influenced the decision

to include all libraries within English-speaking countries. The first factor was the

difficulty of identifying library profiles on LibraryThing, which made it very

inefficient to limit the study to the UK, as there was no guarantee that all the

libraries in the UK using LibraryThing would be found. Secondly, Hammond (2009)

found that, in the sample used for her study on Web 2.0 technology use in libraries,

only American libraries used LibraryThing. Although this is no longer true, as some

UK libraries that use LibraryThing have been identified, this study highlights that by

focusing only on UK libraries the study would exclude important data on library use

of LibraryThing. Therefore more valuable data could be found by widening the

inclusion criteria. LibraryThing provides several features which were used to

identify library profiles. Through the LibraryThing Local application libraries

attached to a UK university using LibraryThing were found to have accounts. Some

libraries using LibraryThing were also identified through the literature review and

one was found serendipitously through attendance by the researcher at a conference.

LibraryThing provides a feature whereby a user can save profiles under the headings

‘Friends’ or ‘Interesting Library’ and also alerts a user to other libraries which have

the same books in their collection as their own. Using the libraries identified through

26

the literature and LibraryThing Local as starting points the researcher consulted the

libraries that they linked to on their profile, or that they were similar to, to find other

library profiles. Although using a snowball sampling techniques means that the

sample is not representative, it was the only viable way to obtain a sample (Bryman,

2012).

3.3 Interviews

Three interviews were conducted with information professionals from two different

institutions. The institutions contacted were chosen due to the convenience of their

locations for the interviewer. At one institution contacted the person involved in the

initial setting up of the library’s LibraryThing account was not involved in the daily

running of the account. Therefore, separate interviews were conducted with both the

information professional involved in the original setting up of the account and with

the member of staff who currently used the account. At the second institution, a joint

interview was conducted with the two information professionals involved with that

library’s LibraryThing account. In this way the views of four information

professionals were collected. Due to the time constraints of this study it was not

possible to conduct further interviews. Although it may have been preferable to

conduct more interviews the answers received were sufficient for use in the

questionnaire. Moreover, although the saturation point was not reached in the

interviews, the use of the same questions in the questionnaire meant that overall a

large amount of data would be collected.

The interviews were conducted so to provide a better understanding of the issues

involved in using LibraryThing as an institution and also to ensure that the questions

27

designed for the questionnaire were appropriate. Although there was a list of

questions which were asked of the interviewees, the exploratory nature of the

interviews meant that the researcher needed to be able to follow any interesting or

potentially relevant topics raised by the interviewee. Therefore a semi-structured

interview style was used, as this was identified in the literature as most appropriate

for these requirements (Bryman, 2012). Transcripts of the interviews can be found in

Appendix C.

Potential interviewees were contacted via email to request their help with the study

and the information sheet (Appendix B) was sent at this time also to provide more

detailed information about the study. Questions were devised beforehand and these

were the same questions that would be used in the questionnaire survey. In this way,

the first interview was both a pilot for further interviews and a pilot for the

questionnaire. All interviewees were given hard copies of the information sheet

upon meeting and were told that the interviews would be recorded for later analysis.

They were then asked to sign the consent form (Appendix B) before the interview

began. After the pilot, the researcher also found advice suggesting that the

interviewer ask respondents to signal their consent on the recording (JISC Digital

Media, 2009) and so interviewees after the pilot were asked to do this. All

interviewees however, including the pilot, were informed the interviews would be

recorded and the data used in the dissertation prior to their signing the consent form.

The questions initially devised for the interview were:

1. Why did your library decide to use LibraryThing?

2. What factors influence your decision to start using a new social media tool?

28

3. How does your library use LibraryThing?

4. How much time do you, in a professional capacity, spend working on

LibraryThing in week?

5. Do you monitor patron usage of your library’s LibraryThing account?

6. If ‘Yes’, how?

7. Have you had any feedback from users about your library’s use of

LibraryThing?

8. If ‘Yes’, what kind of feedback have you had?

9. What do you think are the benefits of a library using LibraryThing?

10. What do you think are the drawbacks of a library using LibraryThing?

11. Do you as an information professional think LibraryThing is a useful tool for

library services?

As the first interviewee had not been involved in the setting up of their library’s

account the interviewee could not answer the first two questions. Similarly, the

second interviewee had set up their institution’s LibraryThing account but was not

involved in the library’s use of it so could not answer questions 3-8.

The first interview was very successful as a pilot and highlighted the need to

introduce more questions to obtain the data needed. In this way using a semi

structured interview style was helpful as it allowed the interviewer to ask extra

questions as they arose, two of which were incorporated into the later interviews.

The first question incorporated into later interviews was ‘This is a list of possible

uses of LibraryThing for promotional/user engagement purposes. Do you think any

of them would be useful for your library?’ This was then followed by the list of uses

identified in Phase 1 of the study. This was asked because it was found that at the

29

first institution the library used LibraryThing only for their online catalogue. The

interviewer therefore thought that it would be helpful to find out whether librarians

would be interested in using LibraryThing in ways further to how they already used

it. The second question devised in light of the pilot was: ‘Would you be willing to

spend time using LibraryThing in the above ways or do you think your library is

well enough or better served by other social media tools that you already use?’ This

was devised because it was felt necessary to ascertain whether librarians felt that

LibraryThing added enough value to justify spending extra time using it.

3.4 Questionnaire survey

It was decided to include a questionnaire survey in the study as this method would

obtain a large data set from which to draw conclusions, increasing the validity of

any conclusions reached. As it is advisable to contain fewer open-ended questions in

questionnaires (Bryman, 2012) the data collected in Phases 1 and 2 of the study

facilitated the creation of more closed questions, with the opportunity for

respondents to expand on their answers if they wished.

The questionnaire was designed using Google Forms so that it was easy to

disseminate to potential respondents. This software also does not require participants

to ‘sign in’ in any way, preserving anonymity. Libraries were contacted using the

email address provided on their LibraryThing profile. If they did not provide an

email address the library was contacted through contact details provided on their

institutional website or by a private message sent on LibraryThing. A message was

also posted on the ‘Librarians who LibraryThing’ group on LibraryThing and on the

Jiscmail Lis-Link listerv.

30

The exploratory interviews aided the design of the questionnaire and so the same

questions initially devised for the interviews were included in the questionnaire,

with the answers from the interviews included as optional answers in the

questionnaire. A question regarding into which category of library the respondent’s

library fitted (i.e. public library, university library) was also included as this

question could provide data such as whether different types of libraries use

LibraryThing in different ways or in which libraries use of LibraryThing is most

popular. Also, it was necessary to reword Question 12 as asked in the interviews

(Question 9 in the questionnaire) in order to make it more understandable in a

questionnaire setting, where clarification could not be given. The full questionnaire

can be found in Appendix D.

3.5 Ethics

The study was classed as ‘low risk’ and was approved by the Ethics Committee of

the Information School of the University of Sheffield in line with university policy.

For the interviews each participant was given an information sheet which detailed

the study prior to agreeing to take part in the study. They were also offered a hard

copy at the beginning of the interviews. It was explained that the interviews would

be recorded for later analysis but that all data would be anonymised. They were then

asked to sign a consent form, a copy of which they retained. In this way the study

obtained informed consent. Moreover, each participant was given a participant

number in order to preserve their anonymity. For the questionnaire, when potential

participants were emailed to ask for their participation the project was explained,

including the information sheet, and assured that their responses would be

anonymous. Participants were also told that they could contact the researcher if they

31

wanted to know more. Additionally, questionnaire respondents were asked to check

a box signalling their consent on the questionnaire itself.

3.6 Data Analysis

As the answers given in the interviews were used primarily to create optional

answers for the questionnaire a form of thematic analysis was used, using open

coding as defined by Strauss and Corbin (1998). For each question asked in the

interviews the answers were coded, either using the words of the interviewees if they

were direct enough (“in vivo codes”, Glaser and Strauss, 1967 in Strauss and Corbin,

1998, p.105) or by assigning a code to each of their answers. For example, when

asked what the drawbacks of LibraryThing were, both Participant 37 and Participant

75 claimed that a drawback was that LibraryThing is a third-party site. This term

‘third-party site’ was used as a code and incorporated directly into the questionnaire.

This had the advantage of using terms used by librarians and which other librarians

answering the questionnaire may then understand. However, this was not always

possible. For instance, in Interview 1 Participant 26, when discussing advantages of

using LibraryThing (Appendix C, p.94), said “I like silly things like you can upload

your own covers and stuff like that. So you can make it your own.” In order to create

a suitable optional answer for the questionnaire this was coded as ‘personalisation’.

The data obtained from the interviews was then combined with that gained through

the survey to inform the conclusions of the study.

32

For the survey the results were automatically added to a spreadsheet as respondents

submitted their answers, which were then coded using numerical codes to allow for

analysis (Bryman, 2012). Excel was used to create descriptive bar chart and pie

charts whilst for Questions 3, 4 and 8 contingency tables were created using

Microsoft Word in order to analyse the relationship between library type and how

the respondents used, or thought they could use, LibraryThing. Due to the small,

unrepresentative sample used for the questionnaire more involved statistical analysis

of relationships between variables were not conducted. Participants also had the

chance to provide detailed comments at the end of the questionnaire and these were

analysed qualitatively, using open coding and thematic analysis.

3.7 Summary

This study used a sequential mixed methods research design, with three phases

(literature review/feature identification, semi-structured interviews, questionnaire

survey). A snowball sampling technique was used to obtain the sample of libraries

that use LibraryThing. The interviews were primarily conducted to inform the

questionnaire and were analysed using thematic analysis. The results from the

questionnaire were coded and analysed using descriptive statistics and contingency

tables, with respondents’ written comments analysed using thematic analysis.

33

4. Results

4.1 Phase 1: Identification of LibraryThing features

A list of possible uses of LibraryThing by libraries was identified through the

literature review and the researcher’s own knowledge and this was then incorporated

into the interviews and questionnaire, as detailed in the Methodology. The features

identified are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Ways that LibraryThing can be used by libraries

Promotional User engagement

To highlight specific collections of books e.g.

those relating to an event or new stock.

To create a book club selection list, using

LibraryThing recommendations or Common

Knowledge data

To highlight books on a blog or website through

a LibraryThing widget.

To help with Readers’ Advisory

To create genre-specific book lists e.g. all the

crime novels held by a library

To provide reviews of books held by the library.

To promote library events through LibraryThing

Local

Providing an online discussion group for book

clubs

This shows that there are ways of using LibraryThing for both promotion and user

engagement. However, in terms of user engagement the features are weighted

towards ones which may be more helpful for public libraries, which may be because

of the origins of LibraryThing as a way for individuals to catalogue their own

personal book collections (LibraryThing, n.d.-a).

34

4.2 Phase 2: Interviews

The interviews informed the creation of closed questions in the questionnaire by

providing optional answers to the questions. Interviews were conducted with people

from two institutions. Participants 26 and 37 were from the first institution and were

interviewed in two separate interviews (Interviews 1 and 2). Participants 44 and 75

were interviewed together. Both institutions were academic libraries associated with

a university but neither were the main university library (see the Methodology for

more information on this process). Below are the questions from the questionnaire

that utilised data drawn from the interviews.

What factors influence your decision to start using a new social media tool?

It became apparent on reviewing the interviews that this question was not interpreted

correctly by the interviewees. Rather than answering it generally they answered it in

relation to LibraryThing. This led to a rewording of the question in the questionnaire

to emphasise that the information wanted was not specific to LibraryThing and also

to the reorganising of the questions, so that this question appeared before any

discussion of LibraryThing. Nonetheless, the answers given by the interviewees

were appropriate and none were too specific to not apply to a more general

interpretation of the question. Therefore, they were still incorporated into the

questionnaire. This question was not asked in Interview 1 because the interviewee

had not been involved in the creation of their library’s LibraryThing account and it

was felt best to collect this information from the member of staff who had been

involved in choosing to use a new social media site. Interview 2, however, was

conducted with the information professional from the same organisation who had

originally set up the account and thus this question was asked of them. In Interview

35

2 the answers given were the tool is free or very cheap to use, the tool is user-

friendly, the tool is part of a ready made network that the library could join and the

tool incorporates Web 2.0 ideas. In Interview 3, Respondent 75 had been aware of

LibraryThing personally and knew that other libraries were using it in a way similar

to how they wanted to use it, which influenced their decision to use it. The ability to

link their LibraryThing account to other social media sites was also deemed

important.

Why did your library decide to use LibraryThing?

This again was a question not asked in Interview 1 since that interviewee had not

been involved in the creation of their library’s LibraryThing account. In Interview 2,

however, it was found that the account had been set up specifically to provide a web

accessible catalogue for the library’s users. Another reason why LibraryThing was

used by libraries was found in Interview 3, where the library had moved to a new

Library Management System that did not allow the creation of lists of new

acquisitions. This was a feature that the library needed and therefore LibraryThing

was used to fulfil this need.

How does your library use the LibraryThing website?

In both interviews in which this was asked (it was not asked in Interview 2 as

Participant 37 was not involved in maintaining the account) the answers to this

question correlated exactly with the reason why the library decided to use

LibraryThing initially, that is, the libraries had not begun to use LibraryThing in any

new ways after joining. However, it was revealed in Interview 2 that at the first

institution they did use a LibraryThing widget to highlight books in the collection on

36

a blog, something not mentioned by Participant 26 in Interview 1. Also, Participants

44 and 75 in Interview 3 did mention that they were considering using LibraryThing

in other ways, such as tagging the books so that students could search the catalogue

or using it to highlight e-books.

How often do you interact with or update your LibraryThing account?

In the pilot interview this question was originally phrased ‘How much time would

you say in a week you spend using LibraryThing?’. However, it was found that

Respondent 26 did not use it weekly but rather updated it whenever new books

arrived, which was not at regular intervals. This led to a revision of the question for

Interview 3 and for the questionnaire, although there was a similar situation in place

at this institution, with the librarian only updating the account when new books

came in, which varied. In the questionnaire it was emphasised that the question

should be answered approximately if an exact time was not known, as it is useful to

know how time intensive LibraryThing is. From the evidence of these interviews, it

is not very time intensive.

Do you monitor patron usage of your library’s LibraryThing account?

Neither Participant 26 nor Participants 44 and 75 actively monitored patron usage of

their LibraryThing accounts, although Participants 44 and 75 did note when people

bookmarked their library’s account on LibraryThing. Participants 26 and 75 both

expressed uncertainty about how they could monitor LibraryThing usage.

37

Have you had any feedback from users about your library’s use of LibraryThing?

At the first institution (Interview 1) no feedback had been received and the lack of

feedback received by the institution generally was also mentioned by Participant 37.

At the second institution no direct feedback had been received but Participant 75

mentioned that through committee interaction with undergraduate students she was

aware that the students knew the tool existed, that some had used it and that they

appreciated the service, though she did not think they appreciated LibraryThing per

se, but rather the service that the library provided through LibraryThing.

This is a list of possible uses of LibraryThing for promotional/user engagement

purposes. Do you think any of them would be useful for your library?

This was a question devised in full following the pilot. The semi structured nature of

the interviews allowed the researcher to follow any interesting points raised and as

Participant 26 worked in a library that did not use LibraryThing directly for

promotional or user engagement purposes, the researcher asked whether Participant

26 would be interested in using it in such a way, to which they answered yes. This

led the researcher to ask this question in further interviews and in the questionnaire.

Participant 37 expressed interest in using LibraryThing to highlight specific

collections of books and also mentioned that the library already used the

LibraryThing widget to promote books in the collection. Participants 75 and 44

mentioned that they were looking to use it to create genre-specific book lists as well

as using it to promote ebooks held by the library through placing a widget on their

website.

38

Do you think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on

it?

This was another question developed in light of the pilot interview and in

conjunction with the above question. Because of this it was not asked in the pilot

interview. It was also reworded for the questionnaire since the question asked in the

interviews was quite complicated as it tried to cover the ideas of value for money

and whether information professionals felt that LibraryThing would add enough

value in terms of promotion and user engagement to justify spending extra time

using it. Participant 37 felt that whilst he thought LibraryThing was a very good tool

he would only get involved in using it if some new functionality was introduced that

caught his attention. This is because of his role in the organisation and the fact that

he did not personally use LibraryThing for his library. Participants 44 and 75 did not

answer the question directly, which may be because of the complicated nature of the

question, but did mention that once the account had been set up it did not take much

time to maintain it. This suggests that they felt that for how they wanted to use it,

LibraryThing would not use up an undue amount of their time.

What do you think are the benefits of using LibraryThing?

This question was asked of all participants. Ease of use was something mentioned in

all interviews, suggesting that this is both a major benefit of LibraryThing and

something very important when using a new tool. Participant 26 also mentioned that

she liked the ability to personalise things like book covers, to ensure that the book

cover shown matched that of your own book, and the fact that it was accessible by

anyone, which was important for their library and how they used LibraryThing.

Participant 37, in addition to ease of use, mentioned the low cost of LibraryThing as

39

being beneficial and Participant 44 mentioned that it looked very attractive,

especially since it showed book covers rather than just a list of titles, with

Participant 75 agreeing.

What do you think are the drawbacks of LibraryThing?

The only drawback mentioned by Participant 26 was that it could not be used as a

full Library Management System with report generating and circulation abilities,

which is obviously beyond the capabilities of LibraryThing, as this is not why it has

been developed. As this study is not looking at LibraryThing as a Library

Management System it was decided not to include this option in the questionnaire.

Both Participant 37 and 75 mentioned the fact that LibraryThing is a third party site,

outside of the library’s control, as a big drawback. Participant 37 also mentioned

that LibraryThing was not very good at facilitating social networking for libraries

and Participant 44 also mentioned the fact unless you paid for an account you could

only add up to two hundred books.

Do you as an information professional think LibraryThing is a useful tool for library

services?

All participants agreed that LibraryThing was a useful tool for library services,

although Participant 26 expressed some reservations about how useful it would be

for larger organisations. Participant 75 mentioned that LibraryThing did have an

added value over the lists created by their old Library Management System as

LibraryThing was a lot more attractive and allowed you to integrate the information

into different websites, as well as allowing you to group different items how you

wished. Participant 37 was particularly enthusiastic about library use of

40

LibraryThing, particularly public libraries, which he felt would definitely benefit

from using it.

4.2.1 Summary

Several factors were detailed as being important when considering using a new tool,

including cost, ease of use, the presence of other libraries or a network of users, Web

2.0 features, and the ability to link the tool to other websites. LibraryThing was used

differently by the two institutions, with one using it as an online catalogue, along

with using a widget, and the other using it to highlight new acquisitions. Both

institutions used it very infrequently and neither systematically monitored patron

usage. Nor had either institution received much feedback regarding their use of

LibraryThing, although Participant 75 had received a little positive feedback from

students. Both Participant 37 and Participants 75 and 44 expressed interest in using

LibraryThing to create book lists, with Participants 75 and 44 wanting to use it to

promote ebooks in particular. Advantages highlighted included ease of use, the

ability to personalise your account, accessibility, attractiveness and low cost, whilst

the drawbacks were that you could only have 200 books with a free account and the

fact that LibraryThing is a third-party site. All interviewees except Participant 37

expressed interest in using LibraryThing beyond how they currently used it, with

Participant 37 saying that if a new feature caught his attention he would look into it.

Finally, all interviewees felt that LibraryThing was useful for library services.

41

4.3 Phase 3: Questionnaire survey

Overall, there were fifty-one complete responses (one was incomplete and thus

removed from the results). As requests for help were made via the Librarians who

LibraryThing group and the Lis-Link listserv it is not possible to determine the

response rate. Below are the results for each question. The full results can be found

in Appendix D.

Which type of library do you work for?

For the pilot questionnaire the available answers were university library, public

library, school library, and other. Questionnaire Respondent (QR) 3 used the ‘other’

option to define their library as a college library for a collegiate university with “so

academic library” in brackets. As the researcher had intended that these kinds of

libraries would come under the bracket ‘university library’ it was necessary to

reword the first answer to ‘University / academic library’. When the results are

adjusted to include this pilot answer within the category ‘University / academic

library’ rather than ‘Other’, the break down of the results is as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: The type of library respondents worked in

5

5 All pie charts include the number of respondents (e.g., 16) and the percentage of all the responses

that this represents (e.g., 31%). When reporting percentages the number of respondents this

represents will be given in parentheses if it is not given elsewhere.

42

This shows that the majority of respondents to this survey worked in

university/academic libraries, with public libraries being the second most

represented. The types of libraries represented under ‘Other’ included two libraries

associated with the NHS (one a “health library” [QR2], the other a hospital library

[QR43]), a “community college” library (QR4), a “nonprofit organization” (QR11),

a “career college library” (QR37), and a governmental library (QR40). However,

the results are not representative since a non-representative snowball sampling

technique was used.

Thinking generally, what factors influence your decision to start using a new social

media tool?

This question caused some confusion among the respondents. The aim of the

question was to determine what attracted information professionals to new social

media tools in order to see whether LibraryThing provided features which matched

these reasons. It would also provide some data on the motivation behind the

decision of information professionals to use a new social media tool. However,

despite rewording and reordering the question, it was clear from the results that at

least some respondents read the question as relating to the factors that influenced

their decision to use LibraryThing. For example, two respondents (QR27 and

QR34) mentioned displaying new books and QR44 said it “was good at the time I

started because nothing was catalogued in the library”. Responses such as these

throw doubt on how the other respondents answered this question and mean that no

firm conclusions can be drawn from this question.

43

Why did your library decide to use LibraryThing?

One of the answers to this question was reworded following the pilot. Originally,

the first answer was written ‘The library needed an online catalogue’. However,

QR2 in the pilot used the ‘Other’ option to answer “We needed an immediate web-

accessible catalogue”. Whilst they may have been using this option to expand on

their answer the researcher felt it would be worthwhile to rewrite answer one,

changing it to ‘The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue’, to make it

clearer. Also, of the reasons given under the ‘Other’ category, two related to

answer two (The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions). QR8

wrote “to promote new acquisitions at the library” and QR36 wrote “To be able to

provide a list of our new books with RSS feed”. Thus the total number of

respondents who decided to use LibraryThing in order to highlight new

acquisitions was 28. The results were recoded as with Question 1.

Q3. Why did your library decide to use LibraryThing

12

28

38

7

0

8

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue

The library needed a way to create lists of new

acquisitions

To promote the library / promote items held by the library

For user engagement purposes, e.g. for use with book

clubs

Don't know

Other

Figure 4: Respondents reasons for deciding to use LibraryThing

44

Answers given under ‘Other’ include:

“Useful as can copy and paste pictures of the books into students' emails

when I'm letting them know a book is ready for them to pick up, visual

display adds interest.” (QR13)

“for the tags” (QR24)

“promote library events” (QR25)

“To enhance access to a collection (graphic novels and manga) that is poorly

served by a traditional library catalog [sic]” (QR28)

“Partly just experimentation – trying something different to see if it was

useful” (QR43)

“To create a catalog [sic] of our Book Hunters recommendations” (QR51)

QR50 used the ‘Other’ option to explain that whilst they originally used

LibraryThing for their online catalogue they now continue to use it alongside a

traditional OPAC and QR44 used it to refer to an earlier answer, that is, that they

originally used LibraryThing as a temporary measure as nothing was catalogued in

the library. These results show that the primary reason libraries decide to use

LibraryThing is to promote the library or to promote items held by the library, with a

large amount of respondents using it specifically to highlight new stock. The results

were also broken down by library type, in order to determine whether any particular

use was more popular with one type of library than another.

45

Figure 5: Contingency table showing the relationship between library type and why the library

chose to use LibraryThing

Reasons Library type

University /

academic library

Public library School library Other

No. / % No. / % No. / % No. / %

Online catalogue 2 / 8.3%6 6 / 37.5% 1 / 20% 3 / 50%

New acquisitions

list

18 / 75% 8 / 50% 1 / 20% 1 / 16.7%

Promote the

library / items

held by the

library

18 / 75% 12 / 75% 4 / 80% 4 / 66.7%

User engagement 3 / 12.5% 2 / 12.5 2 / 40% 0 / 0%

Other 3 / 12.5% 3 / 18.75% 1 / 20% 1 / 16.7%

This shows that across all the different types of library, promotion of the library or

library stock is the most popular reason why LibraryThing was used, with academic

libraries using it for new acquisitions the most, although public libraries often used

LibraryThing for this particular function as well. The highest percentage of school

libraries used LibraryThing for user engagement purposes. However, school

libraries comprise only a small number of respondents to the questionnaire and there

is no way of knowing how representative their answers were.

6 Percentages are calculated to one decimal place. Also, participants could chose more than one

answer and so percentages will amount to more than 100%.

46

How does your library use the LibraryThing website?

Q4. How does your library use the LibraryThing website?

34

21

11

4

7

7

2

0

14

5

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

To highlight specif ic collections of books

To highlight books on a blog or w ebsite through a LibraryThing w idget

To create book lists

To create a bookclub selection list

To help w ith readers' advisory w ork

To provide review s of books held by the library

To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

To provide an online discussion group for bookclubs

To provide an online catalogue for users

Other

Figure 6: How respondents’ libraries use LibraryThing

The most common way that respondents’ libraries used LibraryThing was to

highlight specific collections of books, such as new titles, with use of a

LibraryThing widget on a blog or website coming second. Of the answers given as

‘Other’, six respondents used this option to mention specifically that they used

LibraryThing to highlight new stock. It could be that they misread the answers and

did not realise that choice 1 covered this use or it could be that they wished to

provide a more specific answer. For example, QR9 checked both answer 1 and in the

‘Other’ box wrote “to showcase new titles”. In this case the ‘Other’ answer was not

recoded, since QR9 had already chosen answer 1. QR36 also emphasised that they

had used LibraryThing to promote new stock specifically because it provided an

RSS feed feature. Another use placed under ‘Other’ which was related to answer 1

was given by QR48, who used it to highlight “staff picks”. Thus we can see that

overall 34 respondents used LibraryThing to promote specific collections of books,

particularly new stock. One respondent also mentioned using LibraryThing to

47

provide online (and specifically Google) access to their collection, which was

covered by answer nine (To provide an online catalogue for users), bringing the total

number of answers for this option to 14. The reason for the difference in numbers

compared to the answers for this option in Question 3 is unknown. Other uses

mentioned include highlighting new DVD releases via a widget (QR41), including a

“snapshot of [the] book” in reservation emails (QR13), “tagging books in the leisure

collection” (QR24), and “to provide a supplement to our existing catalog [sic]”

(QR28).

As with Question 3, the results were broken down by library type.

Figure 7: Contingency table showing the relationship between library type and how a library

uses LibraryThing

Uses Library type

University /

academic library

Public library School library Other

No. / % No. / % No. / % No. / %

To highlight

specific

collections of

books

18 / 75% 9 / 56.3% 4 / 80% 3 / 50%

To use a

LibraryThing

widget

12 / 50% 5 / 31.3% 3 / 60% 1 / 16.7%

To create book

lists

8 / 33.3% 2 / 12.5 % 1 / 20% 0 / 0%

To create a

bookclub

selection list

1 / 4.2% 2 / 12.5% 0 / 0% 0 / 0%

To help with

readers’

advisory work

0 / 0% 4 / 25% 2 / 40% 1 / 16.7%

To provide

reviews

1 / 4.2% 2 / 12.5% 2 / 40% 2 / 33.3%

To use

LibraryThing

Local

0 / 0% 2 / 12.5% 0 / 0% 0 / 0%

Online

discussion group

for bookclubs

0 / 0% 0 / 0% 0 / 0% 0 / 0%

Online catalogue 4 / 16.7% 5 / 31.3% 2 / 40% 3 / 50%

Other 2 / 8.3% 2 / 12.5% 1 / 20% 0 / 0%

48

For university or academic libraries, using LibraryThing to highlight specific

collections of books was the most popular use. In comparison, the responses were

more widely spread for public libraries, with only one answer (to provide an online

discussion group for bookclubs) not receiving any votes. Nonetheless, using

LibraryThing to highlight specific collections of books did receive the most votes, as

it did for school libraries. For libraries coming under ‘Other’ this use received the

same amounts of votes as did using LibraryThing as an online catalogue. This may

be because these libraries are much more varied and may be smaller, with less

institutional support, leading to a greater need to use LibraryThing as an online

catalogue. The highest percentage of widget use was by school libraries, with only

50% (12) of university libraries using it (though this was the second most popular

answer) and only 31.3% (5) of public libraries using one, whilst respondents from

public libraries were the only ones to use LibraryThing Local to promote events.

How often do you interact with or update your LibraryThing account?

Figure 8: How often respondents interact with their LibraryThing account

49

Figure 8 shows that there is a large amount of diversity in how often information

professionals interact with their library’s LibraryThing account, with ‘Once a week’

being the most common.

Do you monitor patron usage of your library’s LibraryThing account?

Figure 9: Whether respondents monitor patron usage of LibraryThing

By far the majority of respondents did not monitor patron usage of the library’s

LibraryThing account. Of the two respondents who did monitor patron usage, QR12

did not say how they monitored patron usage but claimed that they had “very little

patron usage”. QR19 said that they had embedded a LibraryThing widget into their

library’s LibGuide on which they could obtain statistics but that they did not check it

regularly.

50

Have you had any feedback from users about your library’s use of LibraryThing?

Figure 10: Whether respondents had received feedback regarding their LibraryThing account

Only 31% (16) of respondents had received any feedback from users regarding their

use of LibraryThing. Of these sixteen respondents, thirteen said they had had

positive feedback, one had had negative feedback and two used the ‘Other’ option to

expand on their answer. QR18 wrote “Students really like being able to find books

similar to what they have just read. It provides very easy Readers’ Advisory” whilst

QR50 said that they had had “Positive feedback from librarian community and a

little positive feedback from patrons.” This means that overall 15 (94%) of the

respondents who had received feedback had received positive feedback with only 1

(6%) receiving negative feedback. Unfortunately, no details were given regarding

the negative feedback received.

51

This is a list of possible uses of LibraryThing for promotional/user engagement

purposes. Do you think any of them would be useful for your library?

Q8: Do you think any of these possible uses of LibraryThing would be

useful for your library?

14

10

20

7

12

13

11

7

7

0 5 10 15 20 25

To highlight specif ic collections of books

To highlight books on a blog or w ebsite through a LibraryThing w idget

To create book lists

To create a bookclub selection list

To help w ith readers' advisory w ork

To provide review s of books held by the library

To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

To provide an online discussion group for bookclubs

No answ er

Figure 11: Uses of LibraryThing deemed useful by respondents

As shown above, the most popular uses of LibraryThing for promotional and user

engagement were ‘To create book lists’ and ‘To highlight specific collections of

books’. Respondents were asked to ignore any ways in which they already used

LibraryThing so these results show uses that respondents think would be useful but

that they do not already use in their library. One problem with this question was that

there was no option that allowed respondents to say that they did not think any of

these uses would be useful for their library. Therefore, it is unknown whether the

seven respondents who did not answer this question forgot to answer it or did not

answer it because they did not think these options were useful for their library. Also,

several respondents answered this question incorrectly, choosing options which they

had already indicated their library currently did. These answers were removed from

the results.

52

A contingency table has been created that shows the breakdown of results by library

type.

Figure 12: Contingency table showing the relationship between library type and LibraryThing

uses deemed useful by respondents

Uses Library type

University /

academic library

Public library School library Other

No. / % No. / % No. / % No. / %

To highlight

specific

collections of

books

4 / 16.7% 7 / 43.8% 0 / 0% 2 / 33.3%

To use a

LibraryThing

widget

4 / 16.7% 3 / 18.8% 0 / 0% 3 / 50%

To create book

lists

9 / 37.5% 5 / 31.3% 4 / 80% 2 / 33.3%

To create a

bookclub

selection list

1 / 4.2% 4 / 25% 1 / 20% 1 / 16.7%

To help with

readers’

advisory work

6 / 25% 6 / 37.5% 0 / 0% 0 / 0%

To provide

reviews

3 / 12.5 5 / 31.3% 3 / 60% 2 / 33.3%

To use

LibraryThing

Local

6 / 25% 4 / 25% 0 / 0% 1 / 16.7%

Online

discussion group

for bookclubs

1 / 4.2% 5 / 31.3% 1 / 20% 0 / 0%

This shows that when considering using LibraryThing beyond how they currently

used it, respondents from university and school libraries felt that creating book lists

would be the most useful, whilst for those from public libraries highlight specific

collections of books was most popular, followed by using LibraryThing for reader’s

advisory work.

53

Do you think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on

it?

Figure 13: Whether respondents thinking LibraryThing adds enough value to spend time

using it

As Figure 13 shows, the majority of respondents felt that LibraryThing added

enough value to justify spending extra time on it. However, almost one third of

respondents were either undecided about the value it added to library services or did

not think it added enough value to justify spending extra time using it.

54

What do you think are the benefits of using LibraryThing?

Q10. What do you think are the benefits of using LibraryThing?

46

24

39

31

50

5

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Ease of use

The ability to personalise your account

It's accessible remotely by anyone

It looks attractive

It's free or very cheap

Other

Figure 14: Benefits of LibraryThing

The main advantages of LibraryThing identified by respondents were that it is free

or very cheap and that it is easy to use, with its accessibility also scoring highly. Of

the advantages given under ‘Other’, three respondents liked the tagging features of

LibraryThing (QR 34; 51; 52), one liked “Functionality such as widgets and

discussion forums” (QR41) and one respondent emphasised that they thought

LibraryThing was “A great tool [sic]” (QR34).

55

What do you think are the drawbacks of using LibraryThing?

Q11. What do you think are the drawbacks of using LibraryThing

22

11

22

14

7

0 5 10 15 20 25

It’s a third party site

It's low on social

networking aspects

It's only free up to 200

books

Other

No answer

Figure 15: Drawbacks of LibraryThing

As Figure 15 shows, that fact that LibraryThing is third party site and the limit on

how many books you can add before a fee is charged were both rated as the biggest

drawbacks to using LibraryThing. The disadvantages mentioned under ‘Other’

include:

“Transferring data via NHS is cumbersome, slow & not always

entire…[sic]” (QR2)

“time expended entering the books [sic]” (QR9)

“not widely used by other libraries” (QR11)

“does not seem to be a lot of interactivity with other users” (QR21)

“Wish it could be somehow integrated into our regular catalogue” (QR28)

“It feels a bit low-tech” (QR31)

“The widget does not work with the Council approved wordpress blog. The

widget has difficulty working with our webpage software.[sic]” (QR41)

56

“It would be nice to have the option of a more “professional” look & feel”

(QR43)

“not good for Russian books or many other languages [sic].” (QR44)

“Doesn’t do audiovisual such as DVDs” (QR44)

“I would like 2 levels of interaction; 1 for librarians (who should be able to

add books) and 1 for users (who should not be able to add books, but who

should be able to comment on them).” (QR46)

“the extra step of adding titles to LibraryThing during our cataloguing

process” (QR50)

“It has less use by the general public (compared to GoodReads).” (QR51)

“Can’t put direct links in anywhere other than the comments field using

html” (QR52)

“can’t customise viewing style: users have to ‘select suggested viewing

style’ [sic]” (QR52)

“bit too traditional (no as flashy as GoodReads, but better [sic]”. (QR52)

Thus you can see that the range of drawbacks is much larger than those of the

advantages and that there is less consensus on these disadvantages. It is also worth

noting that QR26 used the ‘Extra Comments’ field at the end of the questionnaire to

inform the researcher that they had more than 200 books without paying a fee, and

QR24 mentioned having more than two hundred books in the ‘Other’ field to this

question, although they did not explicitly say that they had not paid. The

LibraryThing website says that a $25 dollar one-off fee, or $10 a year, is required

for organisational accounts with more than 200 books (LibraryThing, n.d.-f).

Therefore, either the respondent was unaware of an earlier payment for the larger

account or their institution had special dispensation. Additionally, 7 respondents did

57

not answer this question. Similarly to Question 8, a fault of the questionnaire was

that there was no ‘There are no disadvantages’ option and so it is impossible to

determine if these respondents deliberately did not answer this question, suggesting

that they saw no disadvantages to using LibraryThing, or whether it was missed

accidentally.

Do you as an information professional think LibraryThing is a useful tool for library

services?

Figure 16: Whether respondents think LibraryThing is a useful tool for libraries

Despite almost a third of respondents being uncertain whether LibraryThing added

enough value to justify spending extra time on it or certain that it did not, 90% (46)

of respondents did think that LibraryThing was a useful tool for library services. It

could be that whilst LibraryThing is seen as a valuable tool in itself by many

information professionals, the time spent on it does not always result in enough

benefits or feedback from users for information professional to feel it provides good

return on investment.

58

4.3.1 Summary

In summary, we can see that almost half of the questionnaire respondents were from

academic libraries, with public libraries being the second most represented.

LibraryThing was mostly used for promotional activities, with a large amount of

respondents using it specifically to promote new titles, whilst use of features relating

to user engagement was low. How often respondents interacted with their

LibraryThing account varied greatly, although the most common answer given was

once a week. Most respondents did not monitor patron usage of their account and

most had not received any feedback, although of those who had received feedback

94% (15) had received positive feedback. In terms of uses beyond how respondents

already used LibraryThing, creating book lists was the most popular use overall. The

most popular benefits identified were the low cost of LibraryThing and its ease of

use, whilst the most commonly chosen drawbacks were that it is a third-party site

and that it is only free up to 200 books. That said, 69% (35) of respondents felt that

LibraryThing added enough value to justify spending extra time using it, with 90%

(46) feeling that LibraryThing was a useful tool for library services.

5. Discussion

The first two objectives of this study were 1), identify the ways in which

LibraryThing could be used by libraries to promote services and activities or engage

with users, and 2), identify how libraries are currently using LibraryThing and the

perceived usefulness of the website to librarians who use it. Through the literature

review several ways in which libraries can use LibraryThing have been identified.

Responses to the survey show that the most popular way in which LibraryThing is

59

used is for promotion, with many respondents using it specifically for highlighting

new stock. In terms of the uses of LibraryThing, highlighting specific collections of

books (and in one case, DVDs [QR41]) and using a LibraryThing widget are the

most popular. Other respondents said they used LibraryThing to promote new teen

books (QR21) or to highlight popular fiction (QR24), book group titles (QR50) or

ebooks (QR52), for instance. This ability to create custom groupings of books was

seen as a major advantage of LibraryThing by QR29 and by Respondent 75 in

Interview 3. Indeed, the popularity of such a use is seen in the many different

specific ways in which this feature was used in the literature (e.g. De Jager-Loftus,

2009; Harland, 2009; Rethlefsen, 2007). That such a use of LibraryThing is for

promotion is shown by the choice of language used by several respondents: “We

used to use LibraryThing to promote ebooks, faculty publications and new books,”

(QR52), “we use LibraryThing to advertise our new titles”(QR50), “ a great

marketing tool” (QR29) [italics mine].

Only two respondents mentioned promotion of events on LibraryThing Local, both

of whom worked in public libraries. Also, not all survey respondents who used

LibraryThing to promote stock used a LibraryThing widget on a blog or website (37

respondents used LibraryThing to promote specific collections of books and/or for

booklists but only 21 used a widget). One of the drawbacks of using LibraryThing

identified in the literature review was that it would send users away from the library

website (Feuille-blanche, 2011; Murphy, 2010). Use of a widget mitigates this

drawback and provides a visually arresting way of displaying the items in the

LibraryThing account and so the researcher found it surprising that it was not always

used. QR41 mentioned that the widget “does not work with the Council approved

60

wordpress blog” and that it “has difficulty working with [their] webpage software”.

Hammond (2009), in her research into blog use in public libraries, found that many

libraries in the UK did not allow their staff to access Web 2.0 technologies at work

or that the IT departments did not help librarians to engage with this technology.

The TechCrunch website also reported on a study into Web 2.0 use in government

organisations and found that often such sites were blocked to staff (Butcher, 2008).

It may be that a mixture of technical incompatibility and lack of institutional support

for such endeavours mean that libraries cannot make use of the LibraryThing widget.

Another theme that arose out of the data was enhanced access. QR12 wrote that they

had hoped that “LibraryThing might provide potential patrons with more exposure

to our collection”. This includes both the idea of increasing access to a collection

and increasing awareness of a collection, a key goal of promotion, showing the link

between these two themes. On a basic level the use of LibraryThing as an online

catalogue is a way of providing enhanced access to a library, since it allows people

to see what is in the collection remotely. This point was raised by Respondent 26 in

Interview 1, who said that it was to help people access their collection remotely that

they began using LibraryThing. Indeed, the fact that LibraryThing is accessible

remotely by was seen as an advantage of LibraryThing by many survey respondents.

This idea of enhanced access goes beyond just making a collection available online.

Several respondents mentioned the use of tags on LibraryThing and one respondent

(QR28) mentioned that LibraryThing allowed them to add as many tags as they

wished, using users’ terms, and the idea that tagging was helpful for students was

also expressed in Interview 3. Several survey respondents also mentioned the fact

that it could be integrated with other tools, such as Twitter and Facebook or the

61

library website and two (QR33 and 36) discussed using the RSS facility provided by

LibraryThing. All of these features increase the accessibility of not only the

LibraryThing account but also of the collection, since attention can be drawn to the

books through many different avenues and the use of several tags could make it

easier for patrons to identify items that they will like, as suggested by researchers

such as Fichter (2006), Lu, Park, and Hu (2010), and Rolla (2009).

Use of LibraryThing for the user engagement features was very low, with no

respondents using it for online bookclubs. This reflects what was found in the

literature review, where there was far more discussion of using LibraryThing in a

promotional way than there was of user engagement, excepting using it for readers’

advisory. Indeed, QR48 did say that they found LibraryThing very useful for helping

with Reader’s Advisory. Moreover, QR51 used LibraryThing for a reader’s advisory

task in such a way that they combined it with uses the researcher had originally

categorised as promotional; they worked in a public library that ran an online

reader’s advisory service and all the books recommended through this service were

catalogued on LibraryThing, since it allowed them to add comments and tags to the

books. In this way the library highlighted a collection of books for a user

engagement purpose. By making visible their recommendations they were

promoting both their service and their books, showing that LibraryThing can be used

successfully for a mixture of promotion and user engagement purposes. In a similar

way, QR48 used LibraryThing to list books recommended by staff. This could be

seen as a form of reader’s advisory whilst at the same time promoting books held by

the library.

62

In terms of the uses of LibraryThing that information professionals thought would

be useful for their library beyond how they already used it, the idea of creating book

lists, such as all the books on a certain subject, was the most popular answer in the

questionnaire. Beyond this use, however, the responses were quite evenly spread

among a selection of the other options (see Figure 11, Results). Although use of

LibraryThing for user engagement purposes was low, many librarians did see the

use of LibraryThing for tasks such as reader’s advisory and to provide reviews, with

both scoring quite highly (see Figure 11, Results). These uses were more popular

with public and school libraries, rather than in academic libraries, although 25% (6)

of respondents from academic libraries thought that LibraryThing would be helpful

for reader’s advisory (see Figure 12, Results). This suggests that information

professionals can see a use for LibraryThing in helping with user engagement, even

though promotional uses were still the most popular.

All of the advantages of LibraryThing rated most highly (it’s free or very cheap,

ease of use, and it’s remotely accessible) can be seen as relating to the theme of

accessibility. The low cost of LibraryThing means it is very financially accessible

for libraries and so the fact that one of the most chosen drawbacks to using

LibraryThing was that is only free for the first 200 books is related to this. Ease of

use was the second most popular advantage identified in the survey and was

mentioned often in the comments and in all three interviews. For instance, QR14

highlighted that it allowed them to create a new stock list without having to consult

with IT professionals and Respondent 75 in Interview 3 mentioned that she thought

it was easy for students to use as well as staff.

63

However, drawbacks other than the limit on books for free accounts were identified.

The fact that LibraryThing is a third party site was chosen as a drawback by 22

respondents and was also brought up as a disadvantage in Interviews 2 and 3 and in

the literature. Moreover, some of the comments made in the ‘Other’ field to

Question 11 echo this desire to have something that is made specifically for libraries

or is part of the Library Management System: “Wish it could be somehow integrated

into our regular catalogue” (QR28), “It would be nice to have the option of a more

“professional” look & feel” (QR43), “I would like 2 levels of interaction; 1 for

librarians…and 1 for users” (QR46). Additionally, although not many respondents

felt that the lack of social networking aspects were a drawback, some respondents

remarked on the lack of interactivity with other libraries, also mentioned in

Interview 2, and with users, with QR51 claiming that Goodreads was used by more

members of the public. This lack of interactivity may be why not many libraries

currently use LibraryThing for user engagement purposes.

Another drawback identified in the survey is that of time spent. Although only two

respondents mentioned the extra time needed to put books onto LibraryThing in

response to Question 11, others did discuss it in their comments at the end of the

questionnaire, using terms such as “the tiresomeness of transferring data,” (QR2)

“overstretching our staff to accommodate adding to LT [sic]” (QR12), “double the

work” (QR29), and “there just aren’t enough hours in the day to put into LT [sic]”

(QR9). Conversely, QR50 said that their library continued to use LibraryThing to

promote new stock (they originally used it as their online catalogue) because it was

easy to maintain and provided a constantly changing widget on their website without

any added work on their part. The idea that LibraryThing does not take too much

64

time to maintain was also echoed by the interviewees in Interviews 2 and 3. Thus,

whether LibraryThing is seen as being time consuming may depend on how it is

used and the time constraints of individual libraries.

This difference of opinion is also reflected in the answers to Question 9 on the

survey. Although the majority of respondents (68%, 35) thought LibraryThing did

add enough value to justify spending extra time on it, 32% (16) either did not think

it was worth spending time with LibraryThing or were undecided. On the other hand,

90% (46) of respondents thought that LibraryThing was a useful tool for library

services and the majority of respondents chose at least one option when asked if any

of the identified uses of LibraryThing would be helpful for their library. It could be

that whilst LibraryThing is seen as a valuable tool in itself by many librarians, the

time spent on it does not always result in enough benefits or feedback from users for

information professional to feel it provides good return on investment. Indeed,

QR12 claimed that the lack of “positive return on our investment of time and

energy” meant that they were considering discontinuing their use of LibraryThing,

and QR52 said that lack of feedback was why they now only used LibraryThing

Local to promote events. This shows how important feedback is when evaluating the

success of a tool. Although 15 of the 16 who had received feedback received

positive feedback (QR52 reported negative feedback but did not provide details), the

majority of respondents did not receive any feedback (67%, 34) and even less

monitored use in any way (90%, 46). This echoes what was found in the interviews,

where feedback was minimal and monitoring of the account was not systematic or

was non-existent. As discussed in the literature review there are ways in which

libraries could monitor patron use of LibraryThing. Fichter and Wisniewski (2008)

65

suggest, for example, monitoring Delicious, to see whether people are bookmarking

your website, or using services such as Google Analytics or Clicky Web Analytics

to monitor how many people sign up for an RSS feed and how people reach a

particular web page. Although Fichter and Wisniewski (2008) advise investigating

beyond web page views, this is an easy metric that could be used by libraries to

judge whether their LibraryThing profile is being viewed and such data will be

generated by a service such as Google Analytics (Google, n.d.). Moreover, QR19

said that they were able to collect statistical data from their LibraryThing widget so

this is another way of identifying user engagement with a library’s LibraryThing

account. Additionally, as Fichter and Wisniewski (2008) highlight, librarians could

actively solicit feedback from patrons, for example through face-to-face interviews

or surveys of their own.

The final research objective was to evaluate the overall value of LibraryThing for

libraries. This study finds that LibraryThing is most valuable for libraries as a

promotional tool, using it to highlight specific collections of books that would be of

interest for users, such as new stock or books on a specific topic. However, it can be

used successfully for readers’ advisory work, especially if it is used to highlight staff

recommendations, since this harnesses the promotional value of LibraryThing. It has

less use for user engagement, possibly because the number of library patrons using

LibraryThing is low.

66

6 Conclusion

The aim of this research was to evaluate the value of LibraryThing for libraries

when using it for promotional and user engagement purposes. To achieve this, 3

objectives were set:

1. Identify the ways in which LibraryThing could be used by libraries to

promote services or engage with users.

2. Identify how libraries are currently using LibraryThing and the perceived

usefulness of the website to librarians who use it.

3. Evaluate the overall value of LibraryThing for libraries.

The literature review and the large amount of libraries found that use LibraryThing

show that librarians have identified LibraryThing as a potentially useful tool. In

terms of promotion and user engagement, several uses have been identified, shown

in Figure 2, reproduced here.

Figure 2: Ways that LibraryThing can be used by libraries

Promotional User engagement

To highlight specific collections of books e.g.

those relating to an event or new stock.

To create a book club selection list, using

LibraryThing recommendations or Common

Knowledge data

To highlight books on a blog or website through

a LibraryThing widget.

To help with Readers’ Advisory

To create genre-specific book lists e.g. all the

crime novels held by a library

To provide reviews of books held by the library.

To promote library events through LibraryThing

Local

Providing an online discussion group for book

clubs

67

The most popular way of using LibraryThing, identified through the questionnaire,

was to promote stock by highlighting specific collections of books such as new

stock or wider collections, such as all the ebooks held by a library. Conversely, use

of LibraryThing Local to promote events was low, as was use of LibraryThing for

user engagement purposes. Of the features identified as being for user engagement,

the most popular were to help with reader’s advisory work and to provide reviews,

both in terms of the amount of respondents to the questionnaire who used it in such a

way and those who thought such a use would be useful for their library. Indeed, one

respondent (QR51) used LibraryThing to highlight the books recommended through

their reader’s advisory service, showing that promotion and user engagement are not

mutually exclusive. The majority of questionnaire respondents (46/51, 90%) and all

the interviewees felt that LibraryThing was a useful tool for libraries, although

opinion was more divided on whether LibraryThing added enough value to justify

spending extra time on it, with only 68% (35) of questionnaire respondents thinking

it did add enough value. The most popular advantages of using LibraryThing

identified were its cost effectiveness, the fact that it is easy to use, and that it is

remotely accessible, whilst the main drawbacks were that it is only free up to 200

books and that it is a third party site and therefore outside of the library’s control.

This study concludes that LibraryThing is a valuable promotional tool for libraries

when used to promote particular collections of books and that it has less value as a

tool for user engagement. It is thus recommended that libraries use it in such a way.

As libraries can use it to promote whichever collections of books would be of most

interest for their users, or even for different subsets of users, means that every type

of library can make use of it in ways best suited for them. It is also recommended

68

that libraries use the LibraryThing widget, as this will integrate LibraryThing into

their own website or blog and thus incorporate it to some extent into the library

brand, as well as easily promoting their use of the website. However, librarians may

want to check whether the widget would be compatible with their website or blog

before beginning to use LibraryThing, since if it is not then their ability to promote

their use of LibraryThing may be diminished. Although there are some drawbacks,

such as the fact that it is a third-party site or that it is only free for 200 books, the

majority of respondents in this study did feel that LibraryThing was a useful tool for

library services. Nevertheless, it would be worthwhile for any libraries considering

using LibraryThing to identify not only how best to use LibraryThing for their users

but also how they are going to monitor use and solicit feedback so that they can

identify whether it is a truly useful service for their own library.

6.1 Recommendations to improve the study

There are several ways in which the study could have been improved. If more

exploratory interviews had been conducted, with a more varied amount of libraries,

then the researcher would have been able to gain a better understanding of the issues

surrounding library use of LibraryThing in a range of different libraries. This would

also have meant that saturation could have been reached in terms of the answers

given to the questions, which would have meant that all the possible answers could

have been added to the questionnaire. This in turn may have led to a greater

understanding of all the issues relating to library use of LibraryThing. Other

institutions were contacted but unfortunately meetings could not be conducted

within the time constraints of the study. It may also have been helpful to conduct

69

follow up interviews with a sample of people who had responded to the

questionnaire, in order to gain deeper insights into their views regarding

LibraryThing and to discuss with them the issues that had arisen through the

questionnaire. However, not only was this not possible because of the time

constraints of the study, many of the libraries contacted were American, which

would have made contacting them for interviews difficult and expensive to arrange.

If a representative sample had been obtained then the researcher could be more

certain that the results of the study could be generalised to all libraries using

LibraryThing and thus make surer conclusions regarding its value for libraries. It

would also have been helpful if representative samples could have been obtained

within each type of library so that the researcher could be certain that the

comparisons made regarding how each type of library uses LibraryThing were truly

representative. This would have lead to a better understanding of the use of

LibraryThing in the different types of library. However, as discussed in the

Methodology, this was not possible.

Finally, if the questionnaire had been piloted for a longer period of time, possibly

with a larger sample, then some of the issues that arose in regards to the

questionnaire may have been avoided. The questionnaire was piloted with 10

respondents and was live for 1 week. In this time, only 2 potential respondents

completed the questionnaire. Although this did highlight some minor issues it did

not, for example, bring to light the fact that respondents were still confused about

how to answer Question 2. It would have also been advantageous to interview the

respondents to the pilot to discuss with them the questionnaire and any issues that

70

they had noticed. This would have led to the creation of a more effective

questionnaire. However, due to time and money constraints it was not possible to

implement any of these suggestions.

6.3 Recommendations for further study

In the future it would be useful to conduct research into users’ thoughts about and

attitudes towards library use of LibraryThing, since many respondents to the

questionnaire and also the interviewees had not received much feedback. If

interviews were conducted both with users of libraries that use LibraryThing and

with those whose libraries do not use it this would provide insight into whether

library users think that LibraryThing provides a useful service for libraries.

Word count: 14967

71

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Appendix A

The following table covers the different ways that Web 2.0 tools are used as found

by studies of library use.

RSS feeds To provide news updates, either specific

to the library or relating to the parent

organisation.

(Harinarayana & Raju, 2010; Nesta and Mi,

2011; Tripathi and Kumar, 2010; Chua and

Goh, 2010; Mahmood and Richardson,

2011)

To alert users to library events, such as

workshops or exhibitions, and to new

stock.

(Harinarayana & Raju, 2010; Nesta and Mi,

2011; Tripathi and Kumar, 2010)

Blogging and microblogging To provide news or other information to

users e.g. alerting users to new stock or

database subscriptions, conveying

opening hours etc.

(Cragg, 2010; Harinarayana & Raju, 2010;;

Mahmood and Richardson, 2011; Nesta and

Mi, 2011; Pacheco, Kuhn & Grant, 2010;

Tripathi and Kumar, 2010)

As a user-engagement tool, discussing

topics of interest to users.

(Chua and Goh, 2010; Nesta and Mi, 2011)

To provide subject guides/ subject

specific information.

(Harinarayana & Raju, 2010; Pacheco, Kuhn

& Grant, 2010)

To provide reference services/course

help.

(Harinarayana & Raju, 2010; Nesta and Mi,

2011)

For publicity purposes

(Cragg, 2010)

Instant Messaging Services To provide reference or enquiry

services.

(Anttiroiko & Savolainen, 2011; Cragg,

2010; Harinarayana & Raju, 2010; Nesta and

Mi, 2011; Tripathi and Kumar, 2010; Chua

and Goh, 2010)

To provide homework guidance to

students.

(Chua and Goh, 2010)

Podcasts/vodcasts To provide instruction in using library

resources.

(Harinarayana & Raju, 2010; Tripathi and

Kumar, 2010)

To provide library news.

(Harinarayana & Raju, 2010)

Wikis To provide study resources/guides for

students.

79

(Chua and Goh, 2010; Harinarayana & Raju,

2010; Tripathi and Kumar, 2010)

Used for internal purposes, e.g. to

distribute committee minutes.

(Cragg, 2010; Mahmood and Richardson,

2011)

To provide library news

(Nesta and Mi, 2011)

Social Networking Sites (e.g. Facebook) To communicate to users in a new space

outside the library.

(Chua and Goh, 2010)

For promotional purposes e.g. sharing

photos and news.

(Anttiroiko & Savolainen, 2011; Cragg,

2010; Harinarayana & Raju, 2010;

Mahmood and Richardson, 2011; Pacheco,

Kuhn & Grant, 2010)

To provide a new entry point to the

library’s OPAC.

(Harinarayana & Raju, 2010; Mahmood and

Richardson, 2011; Pacheco, Kuhn & Grant,

2010)

To provide entry points to other

catalogues, such as Copac and

WorldCat.

(Pacheco, Kuhn & Grant, 2010)

To engage with users in new ways e.g.

Rice University Library has a book club

on Goodreads.

(Harinarayana & Raju, 2010)

Video/audio sharing sites (e.g. Youtube) To provide tutorials or library news.

(Mahmood and Richardson, 2011)

80

Appendix B

Consent form

Participant Consent Form

Title of Research Project: An investigation of the viability of LibraryThing for

promotional and user engagement purposes in libraries.

Name of Researcher: Anna Richards (Contact: 07552793040) Participant Identification Number for this project: Please initial box 1. I confirm that I have read and understand the information sheet dated 15/06/12

explaining the above research project and I have had the opportunity to ask questions about the project.

2. I understand that my participation is voluntary and that I am free to withdraw

at any time without giving any reason and without there being any negative consequences. In addition, should I not wish to answer any particular question or questions, I am free to decline.

3. I understand that my responses will be kept strictly confidential.

I give permission for members of the research team to have access to my anonymised responses. I understand that my name will not be linked with the research materials, and I will not be identified or identifiable in the report or reports that result from the research without prior consent.

4. I agree to take part in the above research project.

________________________ ________________ ____________________ Name of Participant Date Signature (or legal representative) _________________________ ________________ ____________________ Name of person taking consent Date Signature (if different from lead researcher) To be signed and dated in presence of the participant _________________________ ________________ ____________________

81

Lead Researcher Date Signature To be signed and dated in presence of the participant Copies: Once this has been signed by all parties the participant should receive a copy of the signed and dated participant consent form, the letter/pre-written script/information sheet and any other written information provided to the participants. A copy of the signed and dated consent form should be placed in the project’s main record (e.g. a site file), which must be kept in a secure location.

Information sheet

Participant information sheet

Project title: An investigation of the viability of LibraryThing for promotional and user engagement purposes in libraries. Invitation paragraph You are being asked to participate in a research project for a Masters dissertation in Librarianship at the University of Sheffield. Please read the following information thoroughly before you decide whether or not to take part. I welcome any questions that you have about the project and your involvement in it. What is the project’s purpose? The aim of the study is to evaluate the usefulness of the LibraryThing website for promotional and user engagement purposes for libraries. As there are many web 2.0 applications which could be used by libraries it is necessary to evaluate the true usefulness of these applications before implementing them. Thus this project will study how LibraryThing could be used by libraries as well as how libraries are currently using LibraryThing and will use this data to evaluate its overall usefulness for libraries. The project will be running for approximately 3 months. It is hoped that by conducting this research best practice in regards to libraries using LibraryThing will be identified. Why have I been chosen? You have been chosen because you have a publicly viewable profile on LibraryThing which identifies you as a library. Do I have to take part? Participating in this project is voluntary and there will be no penalties if you decide not to take part. You are free to withdraw from the project at any time, without giving any reason. If you decide to participate you will be asked to sign a consent form or, in the case of the online questionnaire, tick a box signalling your consent. You are welcome to keep this information sheet to consult at a later date if you wish.

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What will happen to me if I take part? The questionnaire should take about 15 minutes to complete. You are being asked to complete a questionnaire on your use of LibraryThing and your thoughts about its usefulness to you as an organisation. It will include a mixture of closed and more open questions where you can expand on your thoughts about a particular topic. The interview should last no more than an hour. You will be asked about your use of LibraryThing and your thoughts about its usefulness to you as an organisation. The interview style will be semi-structured so that you can expand on any topic that you wish. It will be recorded and transcribed. What do I have to do? All I ask is that you provide honest and frank answers to the questions; you will not be judged on anything you say. What are the possible disadvantages and risks of taking part? There is little potential for physical and/or psychological harm to participants in this study. You are free to withdraw from the study or to decline to provide any information that you are uncomfortable providing. What are the possible benefits of taking part? Whilst there are no foreseen individual benefits to taking part in this study it is hoped that this study, by highlighting examples of best practice and evaluating the true value of LibraryThing for libraries, will provide guidance for libraries using or wishing to use LibraryThing. What happens if the research study stops earlier than expected? If the study stops earlier than expected any participants who have expressed an interest in the results of the study will be notified and all data collected will be managed according to the University of Sheffield’s ethics policy. What if something goes wrong? If you have any concerns about the project or about the investigator please contact Ms Barbara Sen on b.a.sen@sheffield.ac.uk. If you feel that your complaint has still not been handled to your satisfaction please contact the University’s Registrar and Secretary. Will my taking part in this project be kept confidential? Any information that you provide and that I collect will be kept strictly confidential. All data will be anonymised so you will not be identifiable in the report. What type of information will be sought from me and why is the collection of this information relevant for achieving the research project’s objectives? The information sought from you is about your (as a librarian) use of, experience with and opinion of using the LibraryThing website for promotional and user engagement purposes in libraries. Gaining information about how LibraryThing can and is being used by libraries, and the candid opinion of librarians who use it professionally, is necessary to thoroughly evaluate the service’s value to libraries. What will happen to the results of the research project? The results of the research will be written up as a Masters dissertation for the University of Sheffield. If you would like to know the results once the project has been completed please indicate this to the researcher.

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Who is organising and funding the research? This research is organised by the Information School of the University of Sheffield. Who are ethically reviewed the project? This project has been ethically approved by the Information School of the University of Sheffield in line with University policy. Contact information If you would like to know any further information please contact Anna Richards on alrichards1@sheffield.ac.uk, 07552793040 or Ms Barbara Sen on b.a.sen@sheffield.ac.uk. Thank you for taking part in my research. (Dated 15/06/12)

Ethics application form

UUnniivveerrssiittyy RReesseeaarrcchh EEtthhiiccss AApppplliiccaattiioonn

FFoorrmm for Undergraduate & Postgraduate-Taught

Students

I confirm that I have read the current version of the University of Sheffield

‘Ethics Policy Governing Research Involving Human Participants, Personal

Data and Human Tissue’, as shown on the University’s research ethics

website

at: www.sheffield.ac.uk/ris/other/gov-ethics/ethicspolicy

A1. Title of research project: An investigation of the viability of the LibraryThing website for promotional and user engagement purposes in libraries.

A2. Name of Student: Anna Richards

Department: Information School Email: alrichards1@sheffield.ac.uk Tel.: 07552793040

Name of Supervisor: Ms Barbara Sen A3. Proposed Project Duration:

Start date: 01/06/12 End date: 01/09/12

A4. Mark ‘X’ in one or more of the following boxes if your research:

X

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involves adults with mental incapacity or mental illness

involves prisoners or others in custodial care (e.g. young offenders)

involves children or young people aged under 18 years

involves using samples of human biological material collected before for another purpose

involves taking new samples of human biological material (e.g. blood, tissue) *

involves testing a medicinal product *

involves taking new samples of human biological material (e.g. blood, tissue) *

involves additional radiation above that required for clinical care *

involves investigating a medical device *

* If you have marked boxes marked * then you also need to obtain confirmation

that appropriate University insurance is in place. To do this email insurance@shef.ac.uk and request a copy of the ‘Clinical Trial Insurance Application Form’.

It is recommended that you familiarise yourself with the University’s Ethics Policy Governing Research Involving Human Participants, Personal Data and Human Tissue before completing the following questions. Please note that if you provide sufficient information about the research (what you intend to do, how it will be carried out and how you intend to minimise any risks), this will help the ethics reviewers to make an informed judgement quickly without having to ask for further details.

A5. Briefly summarise:

i. The project’s aims and objectives: (this must be in language comprehensible to a lay person)

The aim of this research is to evaluate the usefulness of the LibraryThing website for promotional and user engagement purposes for libraries. This aim will be achieved through the following objectives:

1. Identify the ways in which LibraryThing could be used by libraries to promote services and activities or engage with users.

2. Identify how libraries are currently using LibraryThing and the perceived usefulness of the website to librarians who use it.

3. Evaluate the overall value of LibraryThing for libraries.

ii. The project’s methodology:

(this must be in language comprehensible to a lay person)

Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with librarians working in 3 or 4 UK libraries which use LibraryThing. These will be exploratory interviews, examining the libraries’ use of LibraryThing and the librarians’ thoughts on its value to their organisation and in general. Data collected from these interviews will be used to inform a questionnaire which will be sent to libraries based in English-speaking countries which have LibraryThing accounts.

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A6. What is the potential for physical and/or psychological harm / distress to participants?

There is minimal potential for physical and/or psychological harm or distress to participants. All data will be anonymised and participants are free to withdraw from the study or to decline to provide information if they wish. A7. Does your research raise any issues of personal safety for you or

other researchers involved in the project? (especially if taking place outside working hours or off University premises)

If yes, explain how these issues will be managed. I will be interviewing people I do not know. However, I will contact and talk on the telephone with potential participants before interviewing them in person so I will have some prior knowledge of them before I go to talk to them. I will also conduct interviews during working hours and in a public space.

A8. How will the potential participants in the project be:

i. Identified? I am searching for libraries which have a profile on LibraryThing in order to identify potential participants.

i. Approached? I will obtain contact details from either the library’s LibraryThing profile or from the institution’s website. If there is an identifiable contact for one individual, for example, the librarian who updates the LibraryThing profile then I will contact them, either by e-mail or by telephone if an e-mail contact is not given. If I cannot find an individual I will contact the institution by a general contact and ask if there is an individual I should contact. A similar methodology will be taken for approaching librarians to interview. I will e-mail them and explain the project fully, asking for their participation.

ii. Recruited? When I e-mail institutions I will explain the project fully, attaching the information sheet which would be provided if I was meeting them in person. I will ask for their participation and if they are willing to participate I will send them the link to the online survey.

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If the potential interviewees agree to take part I will then organise a time when it is convenient for me to call them on the telephone to give them more in-depth information about the project if they wish it and to organise a time for the interview.

A9. Will informed consent be obtained from the participants?

YES X NO

If informed consent or consent is NOT to be obtained please explain why. Further guidance is at: www.sheffield.ac.uk/ris/other/gov-ethics/ethicspolicy/policy-notes/consent

A9.1. This question is only applicable if you are planning to obtain informed consent:

How do you plan to obtain informed consent? (i.e. the proposed process?):

I will explain the project in full to any participants, assuring them of their right to ask any questions about the project and to withdraw at any time. I will explain that their data will be anonymised. In the case of the questionnaire users will be asked to tick a box giving consent and a form will be provided for interviewees to sign. All participants will be given an information sheet which will cover the project and how their data will be used. It will also include my contact details and will remind them of their right to withdraw. A10. What measures will be put in place to ensure confidentiality of

personal data, where appropriate? All respondents will be given an identification number which will be used to anonymise their responses. Consent forms will be kept securely by the researcher as will the audio recordings of interviews. A11. Will financial / in kind payments (other than reasonable expenses and

compensation for time) be offered to participants? (Indicate how much and on what basis this has been decided)

No as this is not a funded study.

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A12. Will the research involve the production of recorded media such as

audio and/or video recordings?

YES X NO

A12.1. This question is only applicable if you are planning to produce recorded

media: How will you ensure that there is a clear agreement with participants as to how these recorded media may be stored, used and (if appropriate) destroyed? As part of the process of informed consent I will explain to any interviewees that I will be recording the interviews. By agreeing to participate they will be agreeing to allow me to record the interview. This data will be listened to and transcribed by myself. It will be stored on my own personal computer and destroyed once the project has been completed.

Guidance on a range of ethical issues, including safety and well-being, consent and anonymity, confidentiality and data protection’ are available at: www.sheffield.ac.uk/ris/other/gov-ethics/ethicspolicy/policy-notes

For Undergraduate & Postgraduate-Taught Students

Student Declaration

((TThhee ssttuuddeenntt ccoommpplleetteess AAnnnneexx 11 iiff tthhee SSuuppeerrvviissoorr hhaass ccllaasssseedd tthhee

ssttuuddeenntt’’ss pprrooppoosseedd rreesseeaarrcchh pprroojjeecctt aass ‘‘llooww rriisskk’’))

TThhee SSuuppeerrvviissoorr nneeeeddss ttoo rreecceeiivvee aann eelleeccttrroonniicc ccooppyy ooff tthhee ffoorrmm,, aanndd ootthheerr

ddooccuummeennttss wwhheerree aapppprroopprriiaattee,, pplluuss aa ssiiggnneedd,, ddaatteedd ppaappeerr ccooppyy ooff tthhiiss AAnnnneexx 11 ‘‘tthhee

SSttuuddeenntt DDeeccllaarraattiioonn’’..

Full Research Project Title: An investigation of the viability of the LibraryThing

website for promotional and user engagement purposes in libraries.

In signing this Student Declaration I am confirming that:

The research ethics application form for the above-named project is accurate to the best of my knowledge and belief.

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The above-named project will abide by the University’s ‘Good Research Practice Standards’: www.sheffield.ac.uk/ris/other/gov-ethics/good

The above-named project will abide by the University’s ‘Ethics Policy Governing Research Involving Human Participants, Personal Data and Human Tissue’: www.sheffield.ac.uk/ris/other/gov-ethics/ethicspolicy

Subject to the above-named project being ethically approved I undertake to adhere to any ethics conditions that may be set.

I will inform my Supervisor of significant changes to the above-named project that have ethical consequences.

I will inform my Supervisor if prospective participants make a complaint about the above-named project.

I understand that personal data about me as a researcher on the research ethics application form will be held by those involved in the ethics review process (e.g. my Supervisor and the Ethics Administrator) and that this will be managed according to Data Protection Act principles.

I understand that this project cannot be submitted for ethics approval in more than one department, and that if I wish to appeal against the decision made, this must be done through the original department.

Name of Supervisor: Ms Barbara Sen

Name of student: Anna Richards

Signature of student: ALRichards Date: 24/04/12

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Appendix C

Interview questions

The interviews were semi structured and therefore new questions were asked if they

arose within the interviews. Also not all the questions were asked in all of the

interviews as the interviewees told the interviewer that they could not answer these

questions, as in Interviews 1 and 2. However, below are the questions devised for

the interviews in light of the pilot interview.

1. Why did your library decide to use LibraryThing?

2. What factors influence your decision to start using a new social media tool?

3. How does your library use LibraryThing?

4. How often do you interact with or update your LibraryThing account?

5. Do you monitor patron usage of your library’s LibraryThing account?

6. If ‘Yes’, how?

7. Have you had any feedback from users about your library’s use of

LibraryThing?

8. If ‘Yes’, what kind of feedback have you had?

9. This is a list of possible uses of LibraryThing for promotional and user

engagement purposes. Do you think any of them would be useful for your

library?

10. Would you be willing to spend time using LibraryThing in the above ways or

do you think your library is well enough or better served by other social

media tools that you already use?

11. What do you think are the benefits of a library using LibraryThing?

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12. What do you think are the drawbacks of a library using LibraryThing?

13. Do you as an information professional think LibraryThing is a useful tool for

library services?

Interview transcripts

Interview 1 (Pilot)

Interviewer: Okay, so were you involved in the original setting up of the account,

the LibraryThing account?

Participant 26: No, that was [37] the guy that you first –

Interviewer -- Yeah, I just wanted to check because that’s, you know, one of the

things I’m going to ask but I just wanted to check.

26: -well, jointly contacted. Yep.

Interviewer: So how do you use LibraryThing then, in the library?

26: We currently have our own circulation system which includes a catalogue and

we’ve got that on a standalone machine in our library. But [37], being this…

technical kind-of…he has this technical role in our library, came across

LibraryThing and thought it might be useful—

Interviewer: Right.

26: -- for [institution’s name]--

Interviewer: Yeah.

26:. -- Mainly because it’s obviously accessible from your own PC. People don’t

have to come down to [institution’s name] library to check our standalone catalogue.

So he thought it’d be good for that. And it was free, as well. And it is…you

know…it does look good, it does look good, it’s easy to use. But I’m sure we’ll get

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in to that later. So that was the main reason I think, that we wanted everyone to be

able to access our catalogue –

Interviewer: So it’s just got all –

26: --or everything on our catalogue.

Interviewer: So its got all the books or whatever.

26: Yeah. So, so the way we work now…Obviously, we had to put on all our old

stock. But now, as a matter of course, whenever new stock comes in, I will

catalogue in on our Windchill catalogue, and then the next stage will be for me to

put it on LibraryThing. And again, that’s effortless, because you put your ISBN in

and it does it for you.

Interviewer: Okay, so obviously you’re quite a small library --

26: Yeah, very small, just [unintelligible].

Interviewer: ---so that kind-of works for you then? Because I know it’s sort of…it’s

free up to 200 books, isn’t it?

26: Yeah.

Interviewer: And then it kind-of costs…a very small amount but it does cost. So

how much time would you say… I mean you said it was very quick to do, how much

time would you say in a week you spend using LibraryThing.

26: Well it depends, we don’t really order that many books. It goes through phases,

really, we’ll order a big batch and then they’ll all come in at once. Weekly? Gosh,

not very oft—not very much at all. It’ll be minutes I suppose.

Interviewer: Yeah, so it’s very quick then. And do you monitor, sort of patron

usage of LibraryThing at all? Or do you have any idea..--- No?

26: No, is that possible?

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Interviewer. Well that’s one of the things I’m going to look at, just because sort

of…the idea is if this is a new tool that library’s could use when we’re all strapped

for time we need to know well, are people actually looking at accounts on

LibraryThing. So that’s why I’m asking do you monitor usage in any way.

26: No we don’t, not at the moment anyway.

Interviewer: So I mean, have you had any feedback? From any users, has anyone

said anything to you about it?

26: No.

Interviewer: No.

26: Not had any feedback good or bad. No, but we try, we do try and market it

[unintelligible]. Alongside our catalogue. If anything we probably push it more than

the actual catalogue.

Interviewer: Yeah. I mean, do you know…Does [institution’s name] monitor their

sort-of social media feedback or usage or anything in general?

26: No. No.

Interviewer: No.

26: We’ve got a blog. Is that-? Would that be-?

Interviewer: Yeah, yeah, anything like that, you know, do you-?

26: Well we…Our library has a blog that, you know, has followers and whatever but

that’s--

Interviewer: --But there’s no systematic --

26: No

Interviewer: --that you know of.

26: No.

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Interviewer: So I mean like would you…If someone was to say to you, well, you

know I’ve done some research and there’s all these different ways that a library

could use LibraryThing as a sort of more promotional or whatever. I mean is that

something that you think you’d be interested in? Or are you just interested in using

LibraryThing as a sort of online catalogue?

26: No, definitely be interested in it, if we could do more.

Interviewer: Yeah?

26: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Interviewer: Because that’s what I’m sort of…seeing, whether, you know, it’s…So

I mean, what do you think, you’ve sort-of covered this already, but what do you

think are the main benefits of using LibraryThing? Would it just be the ease of use

or--?

26: Lots of things, yeah. Ease of use for me, definitely, all I need to do, like I said

before, put in the ISBN. I mean obviously not everything’s on there, we have a lot of

like internal publications, like [organisation’s name] publications, which won’t be

on there if you search by ISBN but the good thing is you can put things in manually.

And you can….you see I like silly things like you can upload your own covers and

stuff like that. So you can make it your own, really. So there is that. I like the idea

that anybody can access it as long as they’ve got the log in, people can access it

from their own PC wherever they are and they can check what we’ve got in stock.

Interviewer: Okay. And do you think there are any drawbacks to using

LibraryThing?

26: There probably are but…

Interviewer: But you haven’t --? I mean, if you haven’t come across any or you

don’t know of any…

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26: So you see I don’t know if you can run reports of it, like you know you were

talking about usage reports or…?

Interviewer: Well…when I sort-of….from my own sort-of use of LibraryThing and

from thinking about this and from the literature there’s things like, people can sign

up for RSS feeds and I think you can then track how many people sign up for RSS

feeds. So that could be a way of sort of marketing to users so you can see when

we’ve got new stock in. Other than that, I don’t know if there’s any sort-of reports as

such, like you would with a normal OPAC, I don’t know that there’s anything like

that but obviously there’s sort of ways to try and track general, you know, web

analytics for social media or whatever. So..

26: I think the other thing that I often think about is whether it could completely

replace our circulation system as such. I mean I don’t know if there’s a way

of…using it as a catalogue where people could take things out and we could use

LibraryThing as a way of recording that, as a way of recording what people use.

Interviewer: Yeah, is that something that you think you’d want to do or-?

26: Yeah because, well, we’re…we’re not in the process of changing our current

system, we would like to change our current system cause it’s quite antiquated and

doesn’t do what we want it to do. And it fails a lot, crashes a lot. And it’s got its own

little blips and quirks and stuff, which we don’t really, we don’t trust it.

Interviewer: So you’re completely separate then from sort of…

26: Yeah and that’s part of the problem. See we’d really now like to be part of the

rest of the university because it would make things…And they’ve just moved over

to a new catalogue haven’t they, [anonymised]. So yeah, I mean, that’s something

we’re sort of looking into, that’s an aside. And obviously we wouldn’t use

LibraryThing then, I don’t think. Really. Because we’re in that situation, that’s why

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LibraryThing so helpful for us. So the other side, like I just said, would be the acqu-

not the acquisitions the circulation side. Whether that would be a possibility with

LibraryThing. But I mean I’ve not had a look to see if that’s possible.

Interviewer: Not in the traditional sense. You would have to, there are certain sort

of private comment fields on a book, when you put a book and you know there’s all

the sort of, the usual sort of Library of Congress Subject Headings or whatever that

might come up, the measurements of the book or whatever. So there’s certain

private comment fields on that view where you could put in sort of user details to

say that it was brought out but there isn’t in the same sense, you couldn’t scan a

book and it would go in that way. Because obviously that’s not how it’s –

26: It’s not designed for that, yeah.

Interviewer: So you can but it’s manual--

26: --But it’s all manual. It would probably make life harder in a way.

Interviewer: If you’re current system has circulation ability and that doesn’t crash

too often.

26: Yeah it has the basics so we might as well stick with that I think.

Interviewer: So I suppose that’s one of the drawbacks of using for a sort of

catalogue.

26: Yeah.

Interviewer: When you’re putting in new books do you tag them then on

LibraryThing?

26: Yep, yeah

Interviewer: Do you use the same sort of tags or keywords or whatever you would

use in your normal catalogue? Do you just use the same ones or-?

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26: What I tend to do is I cheat. I’m a really lazy cataloguer. I mean we’ve got our

own cataloguing system which is health libraries, it’s not Dewey or anything else

but I go, for the tags themselves, I go to the British Library. Look up the book and

more often that not it’s on there and just use their keywords.

Interviewer: So you’re just using their keywords.

26: Yeah. And then it’s consistent.

Interviewer: Yeah, no, definitely. I used to check for sort of stuff like that on Copac

when I was doing cataloguing so I, you know…--

26: It’s not cheating, is it? I feel like it’s always cheating.

Interviewer: It’s not, it’s making use of the resources that are there so it’s fine.

26: And I trust the British Library, they should know what they’re doing. I think it

does make you a lazy cataloguer though [unintelligible] –

Interviewer: Because you’re not thinking about it maybe?

26: Absolutely yeah, I should know what, you know, WX152 is.

Interviewer: I suppose but yeah…

26: That, you know, that’s the internet for you it is making things easier and us

lazier in a way.

Interviewer: Yeah, I guess. I mean, do you make use at all of the other tags that

might already be on LibraryThing at all? Do you ever look at them?

26: I don’t actually, that’s something I’ve not done. I know that’s like common

sense.

Interviewer: Oh no, cause I think the sort of layout of LibraryThing you don’t see

other people’s tags until it’s already on there so it’s a bit of a faff but it’s you know a

different maybe viewpoint. I mean do you find it’s useful for academic books

because obviously the majority are sort of public library fiction books on

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LibraryThing. Do you think that you know, when you put in the ISBN it always

brings up the right --copy and right edition and everything --?

26: --I don’t notice any kind of – yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. Like I say the only

things I don’t find are things like grey literature, things that are our own publications.

Interviewer: And do you just use like Amazon data or do you…because I know

when you are inputting the book you can sort of choose like --

26: -- Different…

Interviewer: --their Overcat, which is lots of different libraries’ data going in, you

can use Amazon, you can use Library of Congress.

26: Well what tends to happen is I’ll search by ISBN and it will come up…I don’t

know if you know which page I’m talking about, you’ll search by ISBN, it’ll come

up with a list on the right hand side and I…or the list of the right hand side tends to

be your books and I think it just adds it to the top of the list and then it’ll just say

‘edit’ and I just click edit and I just accept whatever it gives me. And I do make sure

that it is the right edition and the right cover, obviously.

Interviewer: But you’re finding the data there.

26: Yeah, more often than not, yeah.

Interviewer: ‘Cause that’s where sort of one thing that has….not a criticism as such

but a concern that’s come up about sort of using the LibraryThing for Libraries

overlay, so you can make it sort of into a Web 2.0 style thing with one of their

applications and someone was saying well, it wouldn’t really work for academic

libraries because LibraryThing is fiction orientated. So that’s why I was asking. So

would you recommend using LibraryThing as an information professional or do you

think it’s quite a sort of niche thing, it would only be useful for small libraries?

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26: Yeah I think, it’s hard to tell really because you know I work in a small library

and I haven’t worked in a big library for years but yes I think it works very well for

us because of our size. If we got any bigger I’m not sure what we’d do really.

Interviewer: Would you be still willing to use it, not so much say for your whole

catalogue, but say, some libraries I’ve looked at have just used it for new stock or,

this doesn’t apply so much for academic libraries but people have said you could use

it for readers’ advisory kind of stuff. Would you still be willing to put in effort of

having a LibraryThing account and uploading things if you were just using it for –

26: Yeah I think I would. I think I would because it’s so easy to use.

Interviewer: Yeah so it doesn’t take that much –

26: No.

Interviewer: Okay so that’s all my questions…

[The recorder was kept running whilst Respondent 26 and the interviewer talked

informally at the end of the interview but nothing of relevance to the study was said.]

Interview 2

37: My experience is very different to [26]…

Interviewer: Yeah, yeah. Well I mean, I’ve got some questions but if for any of

them you don’t feel that you can really answer that in any way –

37: Okay I’ll do my best.

Interviewer -- Just say, ‘Oh I don’t really have that much experience or I can’t

really answer that. If you could just say your name and say that you agree for the

interview to be recorded and for the data to be used in my dissertation that would be

good.

37: Yeah so we’re starting?

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Interviewer: Yeah

37: So my name’s [37] and I agree to participate in this study as part of a

dissertation.

Interviewer: Thank you. So why did you decide to use LibraryThing for your

library?

37: I’d seen LibraryThing floating around for a while. The thing we’ve got here at

[institution’s name] is that we’re quite a small library, we’re a satellite library of the

university and in effect we’re totally independent, not governed or have anything to

do with them as such. So we are not part of the kind of university catalogue system.

And the reason for that is that we don’t want our stock being loaned by people

outside of [institution’s name] it’s a very private stock to us, to our students and our

staff. So we’re an academic library. So we needed something where we could put

our books on. At the moment we have a catalogue which is basically Access based.

It can be web hosted but it’s just an Access database, a very smart Access, with a

front end. So it’s not web based. So we needed something that gave us a web based

easy option. And I’d come across LibraryThing and because of my role which is

very much kind of looking at innovation and horizon scanning and new technologies

and Web 2.0 and everything like that, this came on my radar. So it became

something that had taken my attention. I looked at it and thought, that’ll do the job

we want.

Interviewer: So, what factors influence your decision to start using a new social

media tool?

37: Well one that it was free. I think we did pay that initial, I can’t remember what it

was, something like $25 for unlimited, so we paid that which will be a couple of

years ago now. So one that it was very, very cheap. It was very, it’d got, it was very

100

user-friendly. It was a network already out there. And I always liked the kind of the

Amazon model, the idea of tagging things, and the serendipity of moving around

catalogues, as opposed to just doing a kind of, a traditional search that just brung up,

brought up a linear collection. So I liked that it incorporated some of the Web 2.0

kind of ideas that I was already very aware of, so that was kind of really the driving

force. And also I thought it was, because I’m a member of a team of information

specialists of which there are around 8 of us, we’re all qualified in either

Librarianship or Information Science, but I’m the most techie of the group and I

wanted something that I thought my colleagues could easily use and that students

could easily use so we could get students to catalogue things and we knew there

wouldn’t be any particular problems because systems we’d used in the past that

were web based were never so straight forward. They had idiosyncrasies etc.

Interviewer: Okay. So yeah these following questions are sort of more to do with

your views on LibraryThing and how it could be used, so like I said if you can’t, if

you don’t feel that you’ve got enough experience with it just say so. So this is a list

of possible uses if LibraryThing for promotional and user engagement purposes

that…these are just from the literature that I’ve read and sort of from my looking at

LibraryThing. Do any of these…do you think any of them would be useful for your

library? Obviously, they’re… a lot of them are public library based which is sort of

reflected from what LibraryThing is originally for but you know do you think any of

them would be useful?

37: No definitely, there’s things there that I can see, to highlight a specific

collections of books relating to an event or new stock. We use it…the great thing

about LibraryThing is that you have widgets with it so we’ve been able to kind of

take things out and put them in our web page, which isn’t the…The University of

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[anonymised] webpages are not the most flexible of content management systems

but we’re still able to embed HTML in there and also we’d be able to kind of take

our little widgets that might show 9 of the most recent books on our blog. So, we do

like that, as we’ve done that to highlight books on a blog. We’ve not used it to create

kind of book lists as such or anything like that but one thing I’ve certainly thought

about LibraryThing, the first time I saw it and looked at it [in?] experience of my

own, kind of, local kind of council authority, kind of public library, is that, you

know, that they should all be using this. It’s kind of, I look at their kind of…what

they’ve got and that, I feel like nipping in and having a word with them. So can

certainly, those top two things are very good. The reviews, I never really saw that

there was a lot of reviews on LibraryThing, I don’t know if that’s changed much in

the last year, I imagine like Amazon it kind of moves more with kind of more users

but….but certainly the couple of first things to highlight books in different places.

It’s great that it allows you to take your collection and stick in another presence. But

I’m not sure about some of the others…

Interviewer: Yeah the Readers’ Advisory and stuff like that is obviously sort of

more public library but I am hoping that obviously with my research I’ll be able to

expand it a little. And would you be willing to sort of expend time on using

LibraryThing for these or do you think that you’re use of other social media serves

you well enough or serves you better for any of..?

37: I think the problem is that because we are a very small library we’re limited in

resources and we only get a finite amount of feedback or usage with things so for

me…once I’d kind of got LibraryThing up and running, that was it. Bar me looking

at widgets and where I can kind of stick it in other places or making kind of tag

clouds or nice little pictorial kind of widgets of books really I’ve kind of left it with

102

the person, [26], to kind of do as she sees fit. But I imagine if something, I think the

thing is with books it’s something people are passionate about and I think

LibraryThing have kind of detected that and I can see that they will expand on this

and I think if something comes on my radar that they do that’ll excite me I would

definitely investigate because I think it’s a very, very good tool.

Interviewer: So I was going to ask, you know, what you think the benefits are of

using LibraryThing and what you think the drawbacks are but I guess if you don’t…

haven’t used it recently…?

37: No, I mean, the definite benefit is the price. It’s fantastic what it does, it looks

nice, it’s…I think it’s a good tool, is something that someone can get into and

understand fairly easily and LibraryThing you can do that. You can some feel of

how it works. I think anyone who has ever used Amazon or anything like that, you

know, you’re going to be okay, so that’s the…The drawback with any of these tools,

it’s always the same, is that it, it’s a third-party site, you don’t know if it’s going to

go down, you don’t know if it’s susceptible to passwords getting hacked and stuff

like that. I’d imagine that those that go out hacking are more interested in LinkedIn

and Facebook than they are LibraryThing, so I think it probably is fairly safe in the

big scheme of things. It would be, I think it would be great to see more of like the

networks and I’d imagine that will come with time, that libraries become more

networks and I’d imagine that that is happening already, as I say I’ve not seen that

but…I don’t see a lot of drawbacks in it. It’s….you know, what’s not to like really?

Interviewer: Well I agree with you! So would you as an information professional

sort of advocate LibraryThing as useful tool for library services?

37: Definitely. And I think even for us at the University of [anonymised] who have

just got our own new library catalogue system which you know kind of sits within

103

the traditional kind of vendor, off-the-shelf software kind of packages that we, that

quite often organisations, large organisations do, I’m thinking particularly public

libraries that for a little bit of extra time and effort you’ve got a wonderful way of

selling your services and your books and…I would say there’s absolutely no excuse

not to use it. Even if you’re just putting on one hundred of your best books I think

that in itself would take somebody just a few hours. So it’s…there’s…I don’t see

any reason not to use it. Regardless of what you’ve already got.

Interviewer: Well thank you, that’s everything. Very short and sweet. So thank you

for being willing to help me out.

Interview 3

Interviewer: If you could both just say your names and say that you understand that

it will be recorded and what the interviews are for and that you give your consent.

44: [Participant’s Name] I understand that this interview is being recorded for a

library Masters on LibraryThing and I give my consent for the interview.

75: I’m [Participant’s name]. I understand that the interview’s being recorded and I

understand what the questions are for and I give my consent.

Interviewer: Thank you. Why did your library decide to use LibraryThing?

75: We decided to use LibraryThing initially because we were changing our Library

Management System and we weren’t going to be able to get hotlists of most used

materials and also we weren’t going to be able to tell people our recent acquisitions

[unintelligible]. So in order to put together a collection that was, that could be seen

by our readers of recently acquired material we decided to try out LibraryThing.

104

Interviewer: Okay. And what factors influence your decision to start using a new

social media tool? Is there anything in particular that makes you think that one social

media tool is better than another?

75: I think I had used LibraryThing before, we knew that other libraries were using

LibraryThing and we knew that they were using it for this kind of purpose. We also

knew that we could then link it in to other social media sites if we wanted to. But it

was really a test run to see if it would work for our purposes.

Interviewer: Right, that’s okay. [To 44] Just chip in whenever you want.

44: I’m sure [75] will kick me at some point.

75: I’ve never kicked a colleague.

Interviewer: It’s on record. How does your library use the LibraryThing website

then? You’ve sort of, you’ve already said it’s…

44: Well, all of the new books that come in, when they’re processed to go on the

shelf, one of the last things that happens before they go on the shelf, is that I add

them to LibraryThing. So it is really just a list of our new acquisitions although we

are looking in to tagging things by you know period and the term when they came in

just to make it easier for students to use.

75: Yeah yeah I would say you’ve caught us just at a point where we’re starting to

look at doing a bit more with it. We’ve seen what, in particular, History have been

using it…So we’re as up until now we’ve just been putting things straight on.

44: And we just upgraded the account as well so it was just 200 hundred books up

until like 2 weeks ago.

Interviewer: Right, so you can put more on there…

44: So it’s in transition yeah.

105

Interviewer: So when you say, I mean you say it’s for new acquisitions, do you

have them on, do you delete them on a rolling basis after so many months or…?

75: We had been because of the…

44: Yeah, because every time I wanted to add one I had to delete one because I was

at the max so now I’m just adding them but we’ll, yeah we will look into how long

they’ll stay there until they get taken back off again. But we haven’t done that yet.

75: Yeah, I think we’re, yeah, we…once we’ve started using it in this new way of

tagging by subject matter as well as by acquisition date I think that’s when

we’ll…we don’t want it to…It’s not going to replace our catalogue so I think we

still do want it to be recent acquisitions but whether it’s the last year’s worth or

something like that…

Interviewer: And when you say you’re going to tag them, are you going to be

tagging them with sort of….I’m trying to think, what’s the word…like abbreviated

Library of Congress Subject headings or your own?

75: We’re just in the process of deciding this and I think what we want to try

initially, and it is obviously quite easy to edit, that’s another useful thing on

LibraryThing, is quite broad subjects. So things like what century we’re looking at

and if it’s language, we just had a language paper, so English Language or just the

plain language. So it’s going to be very…not too many different subjects per book

as well but looking at sort of overriding concerns so is it poetry, prose, drama. But

again I think we’ll come back and look at it and also see how it’s being used by, if

we can, I’m not sure with these things. See what kind of feedback we can get. But

we don’t want it to be too much work as well. Obviously the useful thing is, as the

next, or our next year’s trainee, we have a new trainee every year, as they’re putting

the books onto LibraryThing with the book in front of them at the point that they’re

106

processing it, that again makes it easy to see what the books about and just do a little

bit extra. But we are also thinking that we will keep using it just to sort of say this is

what we’ve acquired this term. And then people can sort it…

Interviewer: So how often do you interact with or update LibraryThing, is it like

once a month, twice a month, once a week?

44: It really varies by just when new books come in, so whenever new books come

in and I process them that’s when I’ll go onto LibraryThing. That might be changing

now as well. If we [unintelligible] more interactive or whatever but yeah…I don’t go

on it unless I’m adding something to it.

Interviewer: So you get books through in sort of bulk and then [unintelligible] –

44: -- Yeah.

Interviewer: And I mean you mentioned wanting feedback or monitoring how it’s

used, do you monitor patron usage of it right now in any way?

75: Only incidentally, we look at sort of connections and people adding us to lists

and things like that but we haven’t been very systematic about it but I suppose

because we haven’t been hugely promoting it yet apart from saying this is where you

can see…And I think that a lot of our u-, our readers in our library only go on to it to

have a quick look at what books we have, I don’t think many of them are

LibraryThing users themselves who are looking at it…but it’s something we’re

looking at…

[At this point someone entered the room]

75: We’re being recorded that’s why…

Interviewer: Slight interruption.

75: To be honest I don’t know quite what we could monitor on LibraryThing, it’s

something that is on our summer time list of things to do, I’m looking at all of the

107

Web 2.0 [institution’s name] presences and looking at how we can tie them together.

So you asked a bit about tags. We’re looking at maybe trying to rationalise the tags

we use on LibraryThing to Delicious so looking at trying to simplify things and have

sort of really user friendly groupings that people can use. I don’t know if you know

anything more about LibraryThing, keeping up to date with it and what people are

doing. I know I get emails through because I get the enquiries email at the

[institution] but we don’t get a huge amount of interaction, apart from from other

libraries.

44: Yeah we’ve been added to you know, we just get a message saying so and so has

added you to ‘Interesting Library’ list, so we’ve gotten quite a lot…

Interviewer: Yeah you’ll have got me.

44: I didn’t know that so obviously I don’t [unintelligible] through all that much.

Interviewer: No because my username’s nothing to do with my actual name so…

75: Very [unintelligible]. I’m looking at it and I think we have, I can see [another

related institution] and that kind of thing, there’s quite a few…I think, I think often

as well the other libraries in [the city] and in other places try to, try to sort of join

together ‘cause it’s useful to see what other libraries are doing, that kind of thing and

I think it’s a bit like Twitter I think, a lot of the attention you get is from other

libraries and other librarians.

Interviewer: So I mean have you had any feedback from users?

75: I would say no.

44: Yeah, no. Not that I know of anyway.

75: I am aware from having spoken… I go to our JCC so that’s where we have

interaction with our undergraduates and the faculty and I know that they are aware

of it being there and I know that some of them have looked at it to see what books

108

we have but I haven’t had any kind of feedback as to whether they like LibraryThing

or if it …all I know is that they like to see what books we get in and it’s good that

there is something that we have. So I think that they would be happy if that were

anywhere I don’t think it’s anything inherent in LibraryThing they particularly like

or –

Interviewer: But it’s a service that they appreciate.

75: Yeah, it’s the service that they’re after and I think actually having the book

covers on there as well is quite nice but yeah I think it’s the service as opposed to

the system.

Interviewer: Yeah. I mean you mentioned getting enquiries through. Is that through

LibraryThing or…?

75: No that…I mean our email address is on there and I imagine that anyone who

wanted to would just email. I’ve had a couple…I mean it’s mostly just people

marking us as interesting. But no I don’t think we’ve had [unintelligible]…[Again

someone entered the room] That’s the point in which our librarian tries to knock

over our water cooler. That was quite entertaining.

Interviewer: So right. So we’ve moved on from sort of what, how you use it to sort

of possible uses and your thoughts on LibraryThing just generally. So I’m looking

specifically at how it can be used for promotional or user engagement purposes and

this is a list I’ve got. Obviously you’ve got sort of, you’re already using it for the

first one and a lot of them are more public library related because of the nature of

LibraryThing and how it’s developed or whatever but would any, do any of them, do

you think that could actually be a useful way to use LibraryThing as a library or not?

75: I think that some of those are actually what we’re, we’re looking to do. So say

the genre-specific book lists I think that’s what’s going to be useful, it’s what’s

109

useful as well about Delicious when you’re looking at websites. And [44] and my

colleague [anonymised] are working on putting our ebooks on there as well.

44: Yeah well I actually made those…as you’ll see [showed interviewer something

on computer] this is who we’re trying to emulate. This is the History faculty

library’s website so they have LibraryThing widgets of all their new ebooks so that

is what we’re going to put on our website. So I think that’s number two.

75: Yeah we are looking at using to highlight our collection of ebooks. And we are

going to put in on to the website. It’s already on Facebook but I’m looking at how

we can maybe make it a little more prominent on there. I think for us we’re going to

be having a push of marketing ebooks so it’s going to be a useful…[at this point a

crash came from outside the building which disturbed the interview].

44: It came at a really silent time.

75: We’re not the quietest of libraries just now. I really hope that wasn’t someone

collapsing one of the scaffolding. But yeah because we are already looking to

promote ebooks we can see, we’re looking at this as quite a useful way, now that

we’ve got the bigger account of pushing it because of the widgets.

Interviewer: Yeah so you’re already doing point number 1 but yeah to use the

widgets and the genre specific book lists you think that’s when it would be most

useful. And obviously you’ve kind of already answered in that you’re saying that

this is what you’re thinking of doing but are you willing to sort of spend the extra

time in using LibraryThing in that way or do you think that say Delicious or other

social media tools serve you well enough?

75: I think it’s one of these things where I mean I’m, I’ll ask [44] to answer this as

well but it, there’s, you have to put the time in for the set up but actually when it

comes to maintaining it… I don’t think we’re planning on putting a whole lot

110

through into it, we’re certainly not planning on doing kind of book club type things

on there just because it’s not really, yeah it’s not really what we would want, what

would be particularly useful in our library itself. But I think the actual ongoing is

quite straightforward.

44: Yeah I mean to do the tags obviously I’ve got to go back through the books that

are already there but as [75] said before when you’re processing them and it’s just

right in front of you it’s just an extra click and it’s, they’re not going to be massively

detailed so…

75: We’ve put together a list so that we make sure that we stick to the same tags

across them all and then obviously once you’ve written a tag in once it remembers

that you’ve done it so I think it’s going to get quicker and quicker as we add them on.

Interviewer: Yeah. So what do you think are the benefits of using LibraryThing

then? A sort of list of benefits.

44: It looks quite nice. Well I just mean that it would be attractive for users rather

than you know like Delicious is a list of links and that kind of thing I think people

would be more attracted by book jacket covers. And it’s, yeah if we promote it a bit

more it’s useful to show people what ebooks we have as they come in because there

isn’t any other way of displaying them really.

75: Yeah I would say it’s user friendly on both sides. It’s quite easy for us to use to

put stuff on there and it’s also quite easy to kind of click through for people using it

the other way. I know when I use it for myself then I find it quite straightforward but

maybe as a librarian it’s easier but I think it doesn’t take too much effort for quite

attractive and useful output. And it’s definitely something we can use.

Interviewer: Yeah. So what do you think are the drawbacks of LibraryThing? Are

there any?

111

44: Well two weeks ago I would have said the drawback was having to delete every

book as you put one on but we signed up to the lifetime package thing so that’s gone.

75: I think it’s always worrying that, we had this issue with Delicious as well but

then it was handed over to new management, there’s always the worry that you’re

putting information into a site that you don’t own and therefore if LibraryThing

were to close down all that effort would disappear. I can’t think of anything else of

the top of my head that’s a particular drawback it’s quite easy. I think that’s quite a

big, a big potential drawback.

Interviewer: Yeah, yeah. So final question, do you as information professionals

think that LibraryThing is a useful tool for libraries?

44: Very quasi…quasi information professional. Yes, well I think if we put it to the

use that we need, it’s filling a gap for us so…

75: Yeah. I mean we used to have you know an integrated system that did this but it

wasn’t so pretty and it just gave you a big long list of titles so actually there is an

added value to using LibraryThing and having looked at what other libraries can do I

think you know the way that you can, you can use that information across different

sites and that you can kind of group things how you want to I think there’s a definite

benefit to the information that we had already being manipulable by the user as well

as by us, as long as we put enough information in there and [unintelligible] start

using it so [unintelligible]…that’s a long, the long yes.

Interviewer: Long yeses are fine. Okay well that’s all my questions is there any, do

either of you have any questions you wanna ask?

44: --No

Interviewer: -- Feel free to say no.

75: No

112

Interviewer: No? Okay.

113

Appendix D

Questionnaire

The questionnaire created through Google Forms could not be inserted into this

document but it has been transcribed below.

A questionnaire on library use of the LibraryThing website

Please answer the questions honestly and to the best of your ability. All answers are

anonymous.

By checking the box below you are giving your consent to participate in this study

and for your data to be recorded and used in the report.

□ I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and

used.

1. Which type of library do you work for?

University / academic library

Public library

School library

Other

2. Thinking generally, what factors influence your decision to start using a new

social media tool?

Choose any options that apply. 'If 'Other' please expand on your answer.

114

The tool is free or very cheap

The tool is easy to use

The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join

The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging

Other libraries are using the tool

It can be linked with other social media tools

3. Why did your library decide to use LibraryThing?

Choose any options that apply. If 'Other' please expand on your answer.

The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions

To promote the library / promote items held by the library

For user engagement purposes e.g. for use with book clubs

Don't know

Other

4. How does your library use the LibraryThing website?

Choose any options that apply. If 'Other' please expand on your answer.

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or

new stock

To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget

To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book lists for users such as all the

crime novels held by the library

To create a book club selection list, using LibraryThing recommendations or

Common Knowledge data

115

To help with readers' advisory work

To provide reviews of books held by the library

To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

To provide an online discussion group for book clubs

To provide an online catalogue for users

Other

5. How often do you interact with or update your LibraryThing account?

Choose an approximate length of time if the exact amount is not known.

Less than once a month

Once a month

Twice a month

Once a week

More than once a week

6. Do you monitor patron usage of your library’s LibraryThing account?

Yes

No

Don’t know

6b. If you answered 'Yes' to the above question, how do you do this?

116

7. Have you had any feedback from users about your library’s use of LibraryThing?

Yes

No

Don’t know

7b. If you answered 'Yes’ to the above question, what kind of feedback have you

received?

if you would like you can expand on your answer using the 'Other' option.

Positive

Negative

Other

8. This is a list of possible uses of LibraryThing for promotional/user engagement

purposes. Do you think any of them would be useful for your library? Ignore any

that your library already uses.

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock

To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget

To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book lists for users such as all the

crime novels held by the library

To create a book club selection list, using LibraryThing recommendations or

Common Knowledge data

To help with readers' advisory work

To provide reviews of books held by the library

To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

To provide an online discussion group for book clubs

117

9. Do you think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time

on it?

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra

time on it

No I don’t think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending

extra time on it

Undecided

10. What do you think are the benefits of using LibraryThing?

Choose any options that apply. If 'Other' please expand on your answer.

Ease of use

The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers

It's accessible remotely by anyone

It looks attractive

It's free or very cheap

Other

11. What do you think are the drawbacks of using LibraryThing?

Choose any options that apply. If 'Other' please expand on your answer.

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked

It's low on social networking aspects

It's low on social networking aspects

Other

118

12. Do you as an information professional think LibraryThing is a useful tool for

library services?

Yes it is a useful tool

No it isn't a useful tool

Undecided

If there is anything you would like to add please do so here.

Questionnaire results

Note that the answers to Question 2 are shown before those of Question 1. This was

done automatically by the Google Forms program.

Timestamp

By checking the box below you are giving your consent to participate in this study and for your data to be recorded and used in the report.

2. Thinking generally, what factors influence your decision to start using a new social media tool?

1. Which type of library do you work for?

3. Why did your library decide to use LibraryThing?

4. How does your library use the LibraryThing website?

5. How often do you interact with or update your LibraryThing account?

6. Do you monitor patron usage of your library’s LibraryThing account?

6b. If you answered 'Yes' to the above question, how do you do this?

7. Have you had any feedback from users about your library’s use of LibraryThing?

7b. If you answered 'Yes’ to the above question, what kind of feedback have you received?

8. This is a list of possible uses of LibraryThing for promotional/user engagement purposes. Do you think any of them would be useful for your library? Ignore any that your library already uses.

9. Do you think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it?

10. What do you think are the benefits of using LibraryThing?

11. What do you think are the drawbacks of using LibraryThing?

12. Do you as an information professional think LibraryThing is a useful tool for library services?

If there is anything you would like to add please do so here.

7/9/2012 11:31:34

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, It can be linked with other social media tools

NHS Health library

We needed an immediate web-accessible catalogue, as we weren't going in with a region-wide one

To provide an online catalogue for users

Less than once a month

No No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget

Undecided It's accessible remotely by anyone, It's free or very cheap

Transferring data via NHS is cumbersome, slow, & not always entire..

Yes it is a useful tool

APART from the tiresomeness of transferring data, I think it's a terrific site - although, using it for work purposes, find the US-orientation slightly irritating. I wish more in the NHS would consider it: it would save everyone a fortune.

7/9/2012 12:10:59

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, Other libraries are using the tool, It can be linked with other social media tools

Oxford College library (so academic library)

The library nneeded a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book lists for users such as all the crime novels held by the library

Once a week No No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, It's low on social networking aspects, It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

7/12/2012 16:29:54 I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, Other libraries are using

community college The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To provide reviews of books held by the library

Once a month No No Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked

Yes it is a useful tool

119

the tool

7/12/2012 17:42:52

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, Patron outreach

Public library The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To create a book club selection list, using LibraryThing recommendations or Common Knowledge data, To provide an online catalogue for users

Once a week No Yes Positive To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To help with readers' advisory work, To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

It's accessible remotely by anyone, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked

Yes it is a useful tool

Our patrons like having an up-to-date list of our new acquisitions.

7/12/2012 17:53:18

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is easy to use

Public library The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock

Once a week No Yes Positive To provide reviews of books held by the library

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked

Yes it is a useful tool

We've been using the LibraryThing widget on our website since 2006.

7/12/2012 19:00:17

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use

Public library The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book lists for users such as all the crime novels held by the library, To help with readers' advisory work

Once a month No Yes Positive Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

7/12/2012 19:49:10

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use

Public library promote new acquisitions at the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock

Once a week No No To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To create a book club selection list, using LibraryThing recommendations or Common Knowledge data, To help with readers' advisory work

Undecided Ease of use, It's free or very cheap

It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

12/2012 22:10:00

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging

Public library The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue, The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, to showcase new titles

Less than once a month

No No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To help with readers' advisory work, To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

Undecided Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It's free or very cheap

time expended entering the books

Yes it is a useful tool

Our use of our LT account has been low lately, mainly because the person responsible for entering the books (me) is also the library's sole cataloger and does not have enough time to both catalog the new books and enter them into LT. This is not because LT is felt to be a poor time investment but because there just aren't enough hours in the day to put into LT.

7/12/2012 22:15:59

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging

Public library The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To provide reviews of books held by the library, To provide an online catalogue for users

Less than once a month

No No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To provide reviews of books held by the library

Undecided It's free or very cheap

It's low on social networking aspects

Undecided

7/13/2012 21:01:31

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging

nonprofit organization

The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To provide an online catalogue for users

Twice a month No No To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To provide reviews of books held by the library

Undecided Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It's free or very cheap

It's low on social networking aspects, not widely used among other libraries

Yes it is a useful tool

Our library is a very unique, small collection, that is not incorporated under any larger accredited organization, and we have no budget / no professional librarian on staff. LibraryThing is the only site that option that bridges the gap between a shelf of books and a professional collection through LC cataloging. Also, we have no budget for the collection, so this is our only option.

7/14/2012 15:18:17

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging

University / academic library

The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue, The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To provide users with another way to access items in our collection without having to use our catalog which is not searchable via Google (or the internet)

More than once a week

Yes Regrettably, we have very little patron usage.

Yes Positive To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock

No I don't think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, It's low on social networking aspects, It's only free up to 200 books

No it isn't a useful tool

As an academic library in a non-profit museum/research setting, we had hoped that LibraryThing might provide potential patrons with more exposure to our collections. We started using LibraryThing about 5 years ago (at my suggestion). I was excited about it as a tool to help us provide greater access to our collections. I was also happy that our library was eager to engage in this new program, and we have continued adding new acquisitions to it. However, I fear we may be overstretching our staff to accommodate adding to LT, and not getting a positive

7/15/2012 16:09:09

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, Other libraries are using the tool, It can be linked with other social media tools

University / academic library

For user engagement purposes e.g. for use with book clubs, Useful as can copy and paste pictures of the books into students' emails when I'm letting them know a book is ready for them to pick up, visual display adds interest.

To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, Snapshot of book to include in emails telling students when their book reservation is r eady to pick up

More than once a week

No Yes Positive Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's low on social networking aspects

Yes it is a useful tool

120

7/15/2012 20:38:13

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, It can be linked with other social media tools, Easy to use ready made widgets, can put html code into my library website

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget

Once a week No No To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To help with readers' advisory work, To provide reviews of books held by the library

No I don't think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

LibraryThing is particular popular with the libraries of the institution that I work in because we switched to a new LMS in July 2011 and we cannot generate acquisitions lists from it yet without significant assistance from the tech services team (it's a big institution with multiple libraries so this is not a realistic option). LibraryThing has proved increasingly popular because of this as an alternative.

7/16/2012 3:16:56

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use

Public library To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To provide reviews of books held by the library

Once a month No No To help with readers' advisory work

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

7/16/2012 9:50:56

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, Other libraries are using the tool, It can be linked with other social media tools

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock

More than once a week

No No To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library

Undecided Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

We originally signed up for a librarything account (before I worked in the library) as a result of a staff training session on various web 2.0 tools that were being utilsed by other libraries - I think that it was seen as an interesting way to interact with more of our users, but at the time we didn't have the staff time / resources to do anything more than setting up a profile. A few months ago, I joined the library on a full-time basis, and we were able to think again about impoving the ways that we communicate with our readers. We had a presence on facebook and twitter, but we also wanted a way to promote our new acquisitions

7/16/2012 10:16:02 I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

Other libraries are using the tool, It can be linked with other social media tools

University / academic library

To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget

More than once a week

No No Undecided Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It's free or very cheap

It's low on social networking aspects, It's only free up to 200 books

Undecided

7/16/2012 13:36:33

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging

School library To promote the library / promote items held by the library, For user engagement purposes e.g. for use with book clubs

To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book lists for users such as all the crime novels held by the library, To help with readers' advisory work, To provide reviews of books held by the library, highlight new titles

More than once a week

No Yes Students really like being able to find books similar to what they have just read. It provides very easy Readers' Advisroy.

To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To help with readers' advisory work, To provide reviews of books held by the library

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked

Yes it is a useful tool

We started using LibraryThing because we had heard about it at a conference. We started entering all our new acquisitions as part of the processing check-list. Staff enjoy tagging. Students enjoy looking at the views and related titles. For us, it has been a win-win endeavor.

7/16/2012 15:14:31

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is easy to use, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging

University / academic library

To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock

Twice a month

Yes I have a LibraryThing widget on a LibGuide that I can get statistics on. I must confess I don't check it as often as I should. The LibGuide itself has averaged about 1,000 views a year.

Don't know To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To provide reviews of books held by the library

Undecided Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone

It's low on social networking aspects

Yes it is a useful tool

It has crossed my mind to explore Pinterest as an alternative to LibraryThing but I haven't had the chance to play around with Pinterest.

7/16/2012 17:49:36

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, It can be linked with other social media tools

University / academic library

The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue, The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions

To provide reviews of books held by the library, To provide an online catalogue for users

Less than once a month

No No To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To provide reviews of books held by the library, To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

We used LibraryThing primarily as a gateway to getting our MARC records for our automation system we were installing at the time. LibraryThing did pose a good option to an OPAC however it wasn't what we were looking for entirely.

7/16/2012 20:02:49

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging

Public library The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To provide an online catalogue for users

Twice a month No No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To help with readers' advisory work

Undecided Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's low on social networking aspects, It's only free up to 200 books, for us, does not seem to be a lot of interactivity with other users.

Yes it is a useful tool

I specifically use it to highlight new teen books that have been added to the library. I can not determine any usage statistics on how many library users actually view Librarything widget, and how that transfers to circulation statistics.

7/16/2012 20:29:26

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, Other libraries are using the tool, It can be linked with other social media tools

University / academic library

To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, highlight new books

Once a week No No To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To provide reviews of books held by the library, To promote library events through LibraryThing Local, To provide an online discussion group for book clubs

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

7/16/2012 20:53:10

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join

Public library The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue, The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions

To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create a book club selection list, using LibraryThing recommendatio

Twice a month No No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To promote library events through LibraryThing Local, To

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very

It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

Great topic for a thesis. Good luck with your project. Best wishes from the [anonymised]

121

ns or Common Knowledge data, To help with readers' advisory work

provide an online discussion group for book clubs

cheap

7/16/2012 23:29:16

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging

University / academic library

To promote the library / promote items held by the library, for the tags

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book lists for users such as all the crime novels held by the library, To provide an online catalogue for users, tagging books in the leisure collection

Twice a month

Don't know Yes Positive To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create a book club selection list, using LibraryThing recommendations or Common Knowledge data, To help with readers' advisory work, To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap, tagging

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, we have more than 200 books on Library Thing.

Yes it is a useful tool

Library Thing has been very useful for tagging our leisure collection and keeping track of which books are in the leisure collection, the main collection, or the juvenile collection. Not all books are cataloged in Library Thing, but only books we purchase originally for the leisure collection (popular reading).

7/17/2012 14:58:54

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, Other libraries are using the tool, It can be linked with other social media tools

Public library promote library events

To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

Once a week No No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To create a book club selection list, using LibraryThing recommendations or Common Knowledge data, To help with readers' advisory work, To provide reviews of books held by the library, To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, It's low on social networking aspects, It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

We started using LibraryThing for book lists, but we did not really receive any feedback from patrons to justify the time spent creating the lists. Now, we exclusively use it for promoting events on Local. Again, not sure if this is helping, but it is free publicity. We will be looking into linking it with our Facebook/Twitter accounts in some way to use it more creatively. It is a drawback to only get 200 books free, so I am considering switching over to Goodreads or Shelfari for booklist purposes. Also, we now have Bibliocommons catalog, which is a handy way to add booklists to our website, etc

7/17/2012 15:06:21

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, Other libraries are using the tool, It can be linked with other social media tools

School library To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To provide an online catalogue for users

Twice a month

No Yes Positive To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To provide reviews of books held by the library

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked

Yes it is a useful tool

One of the options above states that it is only free up to 200 books... ummmm, I have over 1,100 books listed and do not pay... ?????????

7/17/2012 17:53:31 I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, It gives our users an attractive and easy to create new book list.

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions

To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book lists for users such as all the crime novels held by the library

More than once a week

Don't know No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

Yes it is a useful tool

7/17/2012 18:11:47

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, It provides functions that traditional library tools do not

School library To enhance access to a collection (graphic novels and manga) that is poorly served by a traditional library catalog

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To help with readers' advisory work, To provide a supplement to our existing catalog

Twice a month No No To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To provide reviews of books held by the library

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

Wish it could be somehow integrated into our regular catalog

Yes it is a useful tool

For us, the chief advantage of LibraryThing is the unlimited tagging capability. Traditional catalogs are limited both by how many subject headings can be assigned, but also by the restrictions of controlled vocabulary. Terms that are used by users to describe favored genres, etc. are often not allowable.

7/17/2012 19:46:18

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, Other libraries are using the tool

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To provide an online catalogue for users

Twice a month

No Yes Positive To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To help with readers' advisory work

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked

Yes it is a useful tool

Library Thing provides a good service and value for what they are providing us. We also use other services, like World Cat local, but these don't provide the level of customization that is beneficial. The biggest advantage of Library Thing is being able to highlight specific segments of our collection, particularly our newer books. We send updated links to our new books to our faculty, with subject lists that they can link to to find books in particualr areas of interest. This makes it a great marketing tool. The disadvantage is that it is double the work; meaning I have to catalog our books in

7/17/2012 21:10:11 I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, Other libraries are using the tool

Public library The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To let patrons know what has recently been added to the collection

Once a week No No To provide reviews of books held by the library

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

Yes it is a useful tool

7/18/2012 4:53:01

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, It can be linked with other social media tools

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library, For user engagement purposes e.g. for use with book clubs

To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book lists for users such as all the crime novels held by the library

Twice a month No No To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, It feels a bit low-tech

Yes it is a useful tool

7/18/2012 9:16:27

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, Other libraries are using the tool

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock

Less than once a month

No No To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by

Undecided Ease of use, It's free or very cheap

It's only free up to 200 books

Undecided

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the library

7/18/2012 14:52:22

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, Other libraries are using the tool, It can be linked with other social media tools

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget

Once a week No No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's free or very cheap

It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

We only use LibraryThing to facilitate RSS feeds of new items which we display on our website and Facebook. Any use beyond this (e.g. lists of books on certain subjects) would require going over the free 200 book limit and that is not something I feel we could justify paying for.I can see that for very small libraries it could be a viable alternative to a traditional catalogue, provided they didn't require any of the other functions of a Library Management System.

7/18/2012 16:06:34

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, Other libraries are using the tool, A good way to display new titles.

School library The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library, For user engagement purposes e.g. for use with book clubs

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To provide reviews of books held by the library

Twice a month No Yes Positive To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To create a book club selection list, using LibraryThing recommendations or Common Knowledge data, To provide an online discussion group for book clubs

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap, A great tool.

Yes it is a useful tool

7/18/2012 16:28:05 I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, It can be linked with other social media tools

University / academic library To be able to provide a list of our Less than once a month

7/18/2012 16:29:51

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, It can be linked with other social media tools

University / academic library

To be able to provide a list of our new books with RSS feed (which our website could not do)

To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book lists for users such as all the crime novels held by the library, To provide RSS feed of new books

Once a week No Yes Positive To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To help with readers' advisory work

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked

Yes it is a useful tool

7/19/2012 16:42:17 I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging

career college library (Bachelor degrees included)

The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue

To provide an online catalogue for users

More than once a week

No No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

Yes it is a useful tool

7/19/2012 18:03:20

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, It can be linked with other social media tools

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock

More than once a week

Don't know Yes Positive To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

Patron said that he had seen a book he was interested in checking out on our new book table. The book had been checked out by another patron and he wanted it to be put on hold. He couldn't quite remember the title or author but did remember the book cover. We pulled up LibraryThing and scrolled through the covers and he was able to identify the book he was looking for. I put the classification number as a tag and that can enable a patron did not to have to return to our catalog to find the book's location.

7/19/2012 20:24:15 I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, Other libraries are using the tool, It can be linked with other social media tools

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book lists for users such as all the crime novels held by the library

Once a month No No Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

7/21/2012 17:26:27

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, Other libraries are using the tool, It can be linked with other social media tools

Special (government) library

To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To help with readers' advisory work, To provide reviews of books held by the library

More than once a week

No Yes Positive To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To create a book club selection list, using LibraryThing recommendations or Common Knowledge data, To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

Yes it is a useful tool

7/23/2012 9:17:59

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, meets a functional need in an improved way

Public library To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To provide a widget promoting DVD covers of recent releases

Once a month No Feedback not possible. Just a visual promotion.

No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To create a book club selection list, using LibraryThing recommendations or Common Knowledge data, To provide reviews of books held by the library, To provide an online discussion group for book clubs

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap, Functionallity such as widgets and discussion forums

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, It's only free up to 200 books, The widget does not work with the Council approved wordpress blog. The widget has difficulty working with our webpage software.

Yes it is a useful tool

7/23/2012 10:06:02 I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, It can be

University / academic library

To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a

Once a week No No No I don't think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

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linked with other social media tools

LibraryThing widget attractive, It's free or very cheap

7/23/2012 10:06:35

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, It can be linked with other social media tools, Minimal time investment needed to get it set up and see benefits

NHS hospital library

To promote the library / promote items held by the library, Partly just experimentation - trying something different to see if it was useful

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock

Less than once a month

No No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To provide reviews of books held by the library

Undecided Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It's free or very cheap

It's only free up to 200 books, It would be nice to have the option of a more "professional" look & feel - but this isn't a major drawback

Yes it is a useful tool

7/23/2012 11:11:12

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, was good at the time I started because nothing was catalogued in the library (so it was a good "cache-misere")

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library, see "other" above.

To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book lists for users such as all the crime novels held by the library, promoting all new titles

Once a week No Would like to know how to use this (keep me posted!)

No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, not good for Russian books or many other languages. Doesn't do audiovisual such as DVDs which is an important part of my collection

Yes it is a useful tool

I do not spend much time on it, I have created the page and trained my assistants to add everything new arriving in the library.It does look good but it is not as serious of course as a real online library catalogue. was a great solution when I arrived as nothing was catalogued. I will continue to use it for new stuff arriving.

7/23/2012 13:16:18

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, It can be linked with other social media tools

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions

To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget

Once a week No No To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To help with readers' advisory work, To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's a third party site i.e. you don't know if it will go down or be hacked, It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

7/23/2012 16:01:40

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library, For user engagement purposes e.g. for use with book clubs

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create a book club selection list, using LibraryThing recommendations or Common Knowledge data

Once a week No No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create a book club selection list, using LibraryThing recommendations or Common Knowledge data

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

I would like 2 levels of interaction; 1 for librarians (who should be able to add books) and 1 for users (who should not be able to add books, but who should be able to comment on them).

Yes it is a useful tool

We only use it for a small part of our library - the non-academic 'light reading' books that are not on our proper library catalogue. This collection does not have to be borrowed on our computers; books can just be taken away/returned when people hae finished with them. The LT catalogue s a good way of showing what we have without spending money catloguing this collection on our peoper catalogue.see Question 11. If we had this option, we would do much more promotion of LT.

7/23/2012 17:38:53

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget

Once a month No Yes Positive To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To help with readers' advisory work

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

Yes it is a useful tool

7/24/2012 3:34:43

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, It can be linked with other social media tools

Public library To promote the library / promote items held by the library, For user engagement purposes e.g. for use with book clubs

To help with readers' advisory work, We highlight staff picks

Less than once a month

No No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To create a book club selection list, using LibraryThing recommendations or Common Knowledge data, To promote library events through LibraryThing Local, To provide an online discussion group for book clubs

Undecided Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

It's low on social networking aspects

Yes it is a useful tool

I find that I use this much more in a Reader's Advisory capacity than a social networking tool. It's very useful for RA and I use it fairly frequently for that.

7/24/2012 8:57:25

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use

School library The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To provide an online catalogue for users

Less than once a month

No No To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book list such as all the crime novels held by the library, To provide reviews of books held by the library

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It's free or very cheap

Yes it is a useful tool

LibraryThing was originally adopted as a way of getting our (primarily) fiction catalogue onto the internet where it could be browsed by students. Access to it was via a link from our website at [anonymised].I was more interested in making the catalogue available than monitoring its use but fear that, after talking with a number of students, the take-up rate was very low.The provider of our library software (Eclipse.Net from MicroLibrarian Services) has now made available an online version of our school library software. We have

7/25/2012 17:16:36

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, It allows us to reach a goal ie., reaching our patrons, making our collection accessible.

Public library The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue, The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library, We now have an online catalog but continue to also use LibraryThing.

To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book lists for users such as all the crime novels held by the library, To provide an online catalogue for users

Once a week No Yes Positive feedback from librarian community and a little positive feedback from patrons.

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To provide reviews of books held by the library

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap

Only draw back on our end is the extra step of adding titles to LibraryThing during our cataloging process -- very small drawback.

Yes it is a useful tool

We use LibraryThing to advertise our new titles. All new Adult Fiction (including genres), Nonfiction, Audio Books, Book Group titles and other program related titles get added. We have a Librarything widget on our library website and I like changing graphics that it adds to our site without me having to upload something new all the time.Like I mentioned above, we started using librarything before our online catalog was available remotely so

124

patrons would know what was coming in. Now that we have that capability with our own catalog, we still continue with LibraryThing because it is a fun book centric social media that is easy to maintain. See our widget: [anonymised]

7/25/2012 22:26:36

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, Other libraries are using the tool, It can be linked with other social media tools, It's where our customers are

Public library To promote the library / promote items held by the library, For user engagement purposes e.g. for use with book clubs, To create a catalog of our Book Hunters recommendations

To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To help with readers' advisory work, To promote library events through LibraryThing Local

More than once a week

No No To provide an online discussion group for book clubs

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap, Tagging

It's low on social networking aspects, It has less use by the general public (compared to GoodReads)

Yes it is a useful tool

We use it (at [anonymised]) to catalog the books we recommend in Book Hunters, our online readers advisory service. It is invaluable for that service as we can catalog the book, annotation (private comments), and tag the books for later retrieval.

7/27/2012 9:17:50

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool incorporates Web 2.0 features e.g. tagging, It can be linked with other social media tools

University / academic library

The library needed a way to create lists of new acquisitions, To promote the library / promote items held by the library

To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To highlight books on a blog or website through a LibraryThing widget, To create book lists e.g. genre-specific book lists for users such as all the crime novels held by the library

Once a month No Yes Negative No I don't think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

Ease of use, The ability to personalise your account e.g. choice of book covers, It's accessible remotely by anyone, It looks attractive, It's free or very cheap, create own tags

Can't put direct links in anywhere other than the comments field using html, can't customise viewing style: users have to 'select suggested viewing style', bit too traditional (no as flashy as GoodReads, but better).

Undecided We used to use LibraryThing to promote ebooks, faculty publications and new books, but the problem with direct linking to ebooks and the 'suggested viewing style', plus our ebooks were added to the official library catalogue, we stopped using it for promotion. It is still good as an archive though.

7/28/2012 17:01:22

I agree to take part in this study and for the data that I provide to be recorded and used.

The tool is free or very cheap, The tool is easy to use, The tool provides a ready to use network the library can join, It can be linked with other social media tools

Public library The library needed an online (web accessible) catalogue

To provide an online catalogue for users

More than once a week

No No To highlight specific collections of books e.g. those relating to an event or new stock, To provide an online discussion group for book clubs

Yes I do think that LibraryThing adds enough value to justify spending extra time on it

It's accessible remotely by anyone, It's free or very cheap

It's only free up to 200 books

Yes it is a useful tool

I love this library thing because it keeps my list of books organized and I know exactly what I have in the library. Very easy to use and fun.