A Library Thing
I present you with yet another overachieving heroine! I don’t think I’ve posted that someone was creating a librarything catalogue for us (have I?), from all those lovely book recs back on the old livejournal blog and since then here on Pollyanna–so now we’ll be able to FIND them, the way the PWYF heroines have made it possible to find all the recipes everyone has posted. I have just been writing to our book OH!* that when I first agreed to do a blog I had small wistful thoughts about something booky, but I was sure no one else would be interested because there are so many booky things out there on the web already. When recipes as entries and comments became popular I followed almost exactly the same train of thought: gee, wouldn’t it be great to have . . . nah, the web has millions of cooking and recipe sites already. . . . So I am at this moment feeling very happy and satisfied.**
Maren sent me the following email yesterday, and I promptly wrote to her asking if rather than trying to translate it somehow–and inevitably bungling it–might I just post it as an entry? Today she replied:
That’s fine–if they have any questions, they can ask me in the comments or even email me.
viventlesfees@gmail.com
So here we go:
As of last night, I have added to the LibraryThing account all readers’ recommendations through the end of this post: http://robinmckinley.livejournal.com/59882.html
(I’m going to go back and add yours from the main posts all at once.) We are now at 406 books/21 pages! I was thinking that was about the last book-recommending post on LJ and I could get on with Pollyanna, but it looks like there are a few stragglers on the next post. Anyway, I’m more or less done with the LJ comments, but considering that Pollyanna is now at 312 comments and most of those contain multiple titles, I think you might as well make a general announcement about LibraryThing now so people can amuse themselves with that while I continue adding. Also, I have been keeping a collection of recommendations about which I have questions over here: http://del.icio.us/finette/librarythingrobin
Most of them are recommendations for authors in general, and I’m asking if they could provide a few particular favorites as we discussed before. The rest are comments that are somehow unclear, and a few from anonymous commenters whom I ask to provide a username. Those who are not anonymous can just click their usernames in the tags at right, then click on the link(s) that come up to see the comment I’m asking about. The anonymous comments are tagged anonymous1 through anonymous5 (thus far…I noticed there’s a spate of them right at the beginning of Pollyanna too), so if anyone recognizes their comment in there they can tell me which anon they were and I will add their name to that record. Responses to my queries can be posted to Pollyanna–it would be helpful if they would include a link back to the original comment I asked about, but if they are html-challenged that’s fine because I can find them by their username (as long as it’s still the same as it was on LJ).
Speaking of which…anyone like myself who changed usernames from LJ to the new blog can tell me who they were on LJ, who they are now, and which one they prefer to have on LibraryThing. I’ve tagged myself as mwillia9/maren (old name/new name) and I can do it that way for others too if they want. For those who didn’t/don’t have accounts but sign their comments with multiple-word names (Susan from Athens, Manda in Redditch…), I had to make the tags all one word (susanfromathens) because otherwise it would have recognized each word as a separate tag. If these individuals would prefer something else (just the name without the geographic identifier or whatever), I can easily edit all their tags at once.
As for navigating LibraryThing itself: I suggest people first read the profile page at http://www.librarything.com/profile/robinmckinleysblog
which has explanations of my comments and tags system, and what I did with series. Then they can check out the library itself at http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=robinmckinleysblog
I think it will be pretty intuitive for most. In order to get rid of the rating column, they’ll need to click at the top where it says “robinmckinleysblog has a suggested style for viewing this library” (if you’re logged in you won’t see that, but people who don’t have a LT account will). Then they can click on any column header to sort by that column, or click on anyone’s tag to see all of that person’s recommended books, or on the series tag to see only series books. Clicking on a title or author will take them to a new page with more information about that book/person. They can also search within our library in the box at upper right. Those who already have LibraryThing accounts can choose to friend robinmckinleysblog or add it to ‘interesting libraries’–thus far I’m its oooonly friend, but a couple of other people think it’s interesting. As far as I can tell, the difference is that anyone can see the account’s friends on the profile page (near the bottom, under Member Connections) and click on their names to see their libraries, while the ‘interesting libraries’ thing is more like a bookmark–those people can easily find us again and probably see when we add new books, but we don’t know who they are.
There’s lots of other fun stuff to play around with, and I am planning to do a more in-depth tutorial later, but for now I think I’ll leave it at that and let people explore. Let me know if there’s anything glaringly obvious that I’ve left out!
Maren
* * *
*Heh. I like OH as an acronym. OH! An overachieving heroine really should have an exclamation mark.
** Not to say smug. No, no, never smug. Well, rarely smug. It’s pretty damn hard to get to ‘smug’ when you have to look at your words on a page every day. All that aaaaaaaaughing keeps you humble.
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Awesome!
*high fives OHs!*
Awesome. Thanks so much for doing that.
I wasn’t sure how you wanted us to respond to your inquiry so I noted the specific titles I recommended as a comment to my original comment:
http://robinmckinley.livejournal.com/58373.html?thread=2802949#t2802949
This is way cool!
holy cow!
wow!
Thank you, Maren. Thank you, Robin.
Wow, that is fantastic, what an undertaking! Many props to Maren. Will the library continue to be added to as people suggest books (and should we keep heading over to Pollyana’s to do so)? Because just seeing it up there got me thinking…
Yes yes! Please keep posting! There’s no urgency however–Maren hasn’t caught up yet. But I am hoping Pollyanna will be live for a long, long time. :) And yes, the idea is you post there, Maren organises it in Librarything, and then Pollyanna will get archived in chunks.
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Good on our heroine, that’s not a small project! I go through phases of adding stacks of my books to my Library Thing, and then forgetting it exists for months on end. Funny though to click my profile tonight and see that I have the most books in common with “RobinMcKinleysBlog.” :)
I’ll go off and friend it right now so Maren will no longer be alone… (And I’m “WaxLion88″ on LT, for anyone who’s counting. I can’t be a bear all the time, after all. :) )
I have the most books in common with “RobinMcKinleysBlog
*********** Oh good. YOu’re in the right place then. :)
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What a great couple of days/OHs – first dr. horrible and now this! Thanks and *high fives all round!* for all this fun :)
I already “librarything”! (I’m “jnyrose” there). I love it. It’s a lot of fun to play with my books in an online world–and see what books others have as well. How lovely to have all of these recommendations there as well.
Very cool!
To quote Darth Vader: “Impressive – very impressive”.
Also I’m utterly thrilled – I have a happy, cosy, excited feeling in my stomach and I’d like to rub my hands with glee!
THANK YOU, OH!
GOOD. We want all this work to be to a PURPOSE. :) Including all of you who’ve sent in the recs that make the list!!!!
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Brava OH Maren, this looks great. Once I get home (and back to my printer), I’ll look forward to exploring (and answering questions about recommendations).
On a different subject, I uploaded a bunch of puppy pictures tonight–the link is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/diane_in_mn/
The puppies are not quite four weeks old, which is why some of their eyes look bluish and why they’re not too active–they only just start really playing with each other around this age. Also it was a fairly hot day and they were mostly interested in sleeping off large quantities of food.
Oh my, I am ready to bring home a puppy.
FINALLY A LINK THAT WORKS.
Awwwwwwww.. . . .
I also want to know about that SHIRT that whoever is wearing, who is cradling the boy.
I saw the little girl in the trough too!!! Is she slightly darker than the others, or is that just a trick of the light or her size or something? She’s the one I want (of course).
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It’s probably the light, but she may just have been smeared with dog meat. :) Yes, she is VERY cute. She was tiny tiny when she was born, only 6 ounces (Dane puppies generally average a pound to a pound plus), so she did well to come through. So did the boy, too, as he was only 8 ounces. They are all fawn, but some of them are more golden at this stage than the others. This litter is an outcross, which is probably why there’s so much difference.
It’s the breeder wearing the shirt. I can’t remember the design, but there were some sequins on it too. And no doubt puppy food as well by the end of the day.
Being the tiny one, she’s lucky she didn’t get eaten. :)
Outcross? Heavens, how closely bred are these Danes? That gets dangerous.
Generally people who are long-term breeders will linebreed, and outcross when necessary. This litter’s parents have some common ancestors 7 or 8 generations back, but they are from two separate lines. Sister herself is from an outcross. So these puppies have a pretty open pedigree.
My word! That is all, if I may borrow an Americanism for a moment, *awesome* in the extreme. Many and extreme congratulations to Maren, and thank you to Robin for providing a paid-for facility for everyone to use.
It’s a little teeny once-off pay for. (Well, twice off. If it looks like it’s getting used, as I hope it will be, I’ll sign on permanently next year.) Maren’s doing all the WORK.
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I should mention it’s free if you have fewer than 200 books–wouldn’t want anyone to be put off setting up an account.
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Wow! Impressive achievement. So nice to have it like that. **Wistfully looks at piles of books that used to be sorted and catalogued – once upon a time** It’s such a great list of recommendations. Also this way, when I think of a book, I can easily see whether somebody else has already recommended it, before repeat a recommendation. It’s also a small way of seeing who has read books you like (and got in early enough with the recommend as well, I guess…) and what is still missing.
Most excellent work. Well done you, Maren and thanks Robin for encouraging us in this folly.
As I say, Mwa ha ha ha ha ha. :)
I’ll ask Maren about this. There ought to be a way to cite repeat recs. So you know that not just this or that person loved x or y, MILLIONS of people love x or y.
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Each username tag on one book indicates a separate recommendation, so any books with multiple usernames in the Tags column have been recommended more than once. The bulleted “so-and-so’s recommendation” links in the Comments column will take you directly to the original comments where that recommendation was made on LJ or (later) Pollyanna. So, yes, it’s perfectly fine for you to recommend a book that’s already in there–that’s how we know what’s really popular!
Thanks. I’m being my usual slow backward retro AND don’t have the time self about figuring all this out. But I’m glad it shows/matters that there are repeat recs. I think that’s always an important item in any kind of list of recommended anything.
So all of you, please rec away! :)
*So all of you, please rec away!:)*
Oh, good!
Well, of course I was going to anyway (can one resist spreading one’s poisonous influence as much – or should it be “as far”- as possible?), but it’s of course nice to know I’m not going to be a nuisance! (or not TOO much of a nuisance…) And I’m afraid there _will_ be repeat recs; can’t be helped, really…:)
I hope your arm is better – nasty, evil gate! (I have not outgrown giving things personalities and/or crediting them with bad intentions, nor do I intend to!)
And I’m afraid there _will_ be repeat recs; can’t be helped, really…:)
******** NO, no, repeat recs are GOOD! It’s GOOD to k now that a lot of people liked something!
Funnily enough I’ve recently discovered LibraryThing, and have been spending large chunks of my time adding books. It’s a fine aid to procrastination…;-)
And huzzah for Maren for taking to time to compile all the book recs like this. *sends chocolate*
It’s a fine aid to procrastination…;-)
*********** Yes I’m a little WORRIED about that. . . .
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Yes, it’s actually quite dangerous. Has anyone seen the last three hours of my evening? Because I think they’ve been stolen….
Yes, that sounds right!