Leveraging LibraryThing:

Adding uncontrolled vocabulary to your catalogue

Niamh Walker-HeadonSystems Librarian – ITT Dublin

Why Library Thing• New web site

– Introducing Web 2.0• Adding interactivity

• Options explored– Star Ratings on web site already – Add on supplied by LMS supplier– Aquabrowser (see TCD’s catalogue)– Library Thing

The debate• Review of the options

– Star Ratings on web site already • Not really intuitive

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

– (Wanted a solution in 2007)

More debate…– Aquabrowser

• Monthly subscription, costing.

Outcome of the debate– Library Thing

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

» Personal libraries, reading communities, etc.

• Examples later

Uncontrolled vocabulary• Debate about uncontrolled vocabulary

– Ongoing• Current controlled vocabulary not changing as fast

as needed– Did not want to make any changes to our

MARC records• Like the idea of FRBR, but it’s still not

finalised– Library thing links to similar titles

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

Bibliographic Records – Idea is to change how catalogues present

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

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

Library thing??@@!!• Library thing started out as a web based

interactive web 2.0 application for personal use– There has been a librarian involved since the

early days• It has since branched out into the library

arena

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

quality catalog of your books..• And because everyone catalogs online,

they also catalog together. • LibraryThing connects people based on

the books they share.”• From http://www.librarything.com/tour/

• It is very interactive, and builds communities fast

Library thing - personal

Tags are added here by personal

users

What Library thing does

Tags????• Tags are:• “Tags, a type of metadata involving the

association of descriptors with objects. “– From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tags

• Also used on blogs, social networking sites and wikis.

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

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

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

providing some of the best recommendations on the web.

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

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

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

What does LibraryThing for Libraries do?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

flexibility of searching and browsing your books by tags.

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

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

In your catalogue, by title.

Using tag clouds

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

thousands of reviews and let your patrons add their own.

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

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

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

How good is it?• LibraryThing for Libraries draws on

LibraryThing.com,.• Library thing say they can enhance 50% or

more of your ISBNs. – ITT Dublin submitted 20,000 isbn’s. Library

thing had matched for over 15,000 of them.

What about the Tags

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

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

Getting Set up - Timeline• March / April 2007

– Discussion and decision to investigate further• May / June 2007

– Debate and investigation– Institute Librarian attends Tim Spalding's’ address to IIUG

• July 2007– Costing sought

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

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

How does it work? Exporting• Step one:

– Export ISBN, title and author information in tab-delimited format and send to Library thing.

• This is a tab delimited file based on your marc records.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Turn it on. – Turn it off anytime too

• This was important for us

Additional points of access• Tags

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

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

users– See if Tags are more noticed

» So far they seem to be

FRBR type access points• Related items

– More details tab– Translations and other EDITIONS linked

directly within the catalogue• Similar items

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

catalogue

Examples from ITT Dublin• Search examples:

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

» Olivier, Jamie

– Subject > Ansel Adams

Questions?• Find out more:

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

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

searchtype=X&searcharg=fellowship+of+the+ring&SORT=D

Tag cloud- Fellowship of the ring

Recommendations from Catalogue

Linked to another title

Other edition in catalogue

Record for other edition

Similar items – Trilogy titles

Straight to Return of the King

Full record – controlled headings