Image by eclecticlibrarian via Flickr

The book situation in the apartment has finally reached critical mass. Roger and Sophia told me that I shouldn’t bring any more home, and so I’ve declared a moratorium on new book acquisition until the end of the year. Of course, it’s not a complete moratorium, because there’s been a couple that I’ve slipped in under the radar, or for Sophia or Roger themselves (surely that’s okay, right?).

I haven’t seriously updated my LibraryThing account in ages. But I did get a CueCat, and that makes entering books a snap. I was amazed.

Now that my panic attacks have subsided (seemingly completely—I haven’t had one in weeks), I’m eager to get back to work on organizing and volunteering.

Have you searched the Library catalogue lately?
If you have in the last couple of days, you will have noticed some extra features when you found the title you were after.

The Library now has LibraryThing for Libraries as an enhancement to our catalogue which uses the resources created by users of the LibraryThing website. 
Each title features book reviews , ratings, suggested titles “you might also like…” and tag browsing to help you find other titles of interest to you.
You can even review and rate titles you have read, directly in the catalogue by simply clicking on Review this yourself and starting a New reviews account. We look forward to seeing some reviews from our Library patrons!

So if you haven’t visited lately, go to the catalogue, search for some titles and check out the new features. We’d love to hear your feedback about it, so please add a comment telling us what you think.

Ich bin – passend zur nahenden Adventszeit – auf eine interessante Seite gestossen. Das uns wohl allen aus der Schulzeit bekannte “Wichtelspiel”, bei dem man von (Klassen-)Kameraden anonym kleine Geschenke erhält, wurde nun auf eine schöne und ungewöhnliche Art und Weise auch für Bibliophile und Leseratten ins Leben gerufen. 

Die Idee ist einfach. Man bezahlt einen kleinen Betrag und kauft dafür Bücher für eine andere Person, deren Lesevorlieben und Lieblingsautoren man auf ihrem Profil unter www.librarything.com einsehen kann. Jeder Teilnehmer darf natürlich auch seine/ ihre Favoriten und speziellen Lektürewünsche angeben. Nach getaner “Arbeit” kann man sich entspannt zurücklehnen und sich auf die Buchgeschenke, die man von anderen (anonymen) “Wichteln” erhalten wird, freuen.

Das Schöne an der Sache ist, dass man auch mit knappem Budget teilnehmen kann, oder, falls man selber bereits genug Bücher besitzt, seine Freunde und Bekannten für die Buchgeschenke anmelden darf. 

Mehr zum Wichtelspiel unter:

http://www.librarything.com/santathing.php

Claudia Kovalik

Soo…9 days without Facebook. What have I been doing with myself? Mowing the lawn, taking long walks outside, working on projects for work and school; I’ve also been revisiting the various social networks and micro-networks I’ve joined over the last several years…and I’ve joined a coupla more. Presented here, for my benefit and yours, are the places I’m connected to online – and why I’m on a particular network. This doesn’t count email discussion groups I’m part of; I suppose that’d be a whole ‘nother post!

General/Meta

Twitter – @zoecarnate

FriendFeed – FriendFeed is awesome; let’s hope Facebook buying them doesn’t screw it up.

LinkedIn – my business, my biz-nass.

LibraryThing – my library, cataloged. A super-fun social network for book geeks.

Myspace – because sometimes I’m nostalgic for 2003.

Plaxo – does anyone remember what Plaxo is for?

YouTube – my vids, vids, vids.

Futurist

ShapingTomorrow – a large global community; primarily devoted to environmental scanning and trend analysis

The New Futurists – a younger crop of futurists, centered primarily in the northeast United States.

Faith

TransFORM – there’s more than meets the eye here.

Christiarchy! – Christian anarchists and Anabaptists (is there a difference?)

Christian Mysticism & Contemplative Spirituality – what it says. Contemplate that.

Missional Tribe – this one had a strong start but I think WordPress infrastructure, while great for blogs, isn’t great for supporting social networks.

Recovering Evangelical – hee-hee.

Metro Atlanta Emergent Cohort – my once and future cohort.

The Hyphenateds:

Anglimergent – I’m not Episcopalian, but I’m inspired by ‘em…especially St Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco.

Baptimergent – I’m not Baptist, but I used to be! And I’m inspired by New Community Church in Raleigh.

Cathlimergent – A brand new network started by my friend John Sylvest of ChristianNonduality

Emerging Leaders Network – aka Luthermergent. I’m not Lutheran, but…you see where this is going? Mad props to House For All in Denver.

The Common Root – formerly Submergent; an awesome group of Anabaptist-minded peeps.

QuakerQuaker – aka Convergent Friends.

House Church Homies

Simple Church

Organic Church Today

Healing Communities

Bleeding-Edge Creatives

Love Is Concrete – you can actually draw stuff in this network.

Wisefire – a great group of people.

iEvolve: Global Practice Community – Integral peeps.

Ik heb nu 14 boeken in mijn boekenkast, met behoorlijk wisselende populariteit. De meest populaire (die ik tot nu toe heb ingevoerd) is ‘De schaduw van de wind’: 9,963 en de minst populaire: ‘De Bulgari-connectie’: 66(!) Dit laatste is echt oerzonde want een geweldig boek, eigenlijk alle boeken van Fay Weldon zijn goed, maar dat is schijnbaar nog niet echt doorgedrongen in Librarything, want Saunageheimen heeft zelfs maar 4 leden!

Allemaal: voeg je boeken van Fay Weldon toe!

Er zijn bibliotheken die aan LibraryThing doen, ik kom er even niet meer achter welke, helaas. Daar kom ik misschien nog wel op terug. In ieder geval weet ik bijna zeker dat ik dit account weer ga opheffen als de cursus voorbij is. Ik vind het leuker om met real life mensen over boeken te praten. Het toevoegen van boeken vind ik nog wel leuk, maar alleen als het zoeken direct het goede resultaat oplevert, en ik vind het toevoegen van waarderingen en trefwoorden te veel werk. Ik ga ook niet de librarything widget toevoegen, ook al ziet het er leuk uit als het lukt, want dat betekent dat ik nog veel meer boeken moet toevoegen, en ik heb de beschrijving voor wordpress gelezen en dat lijkt me iets om niet aan te beginnen

<div id=”w85ccbd27a3494d7fd751547e3892b510″></div><script type=”text/javascript” charset=”UTF-8″ src=”http://www.librarything.com/widget_get.php?userid=schlimmbesserung&theID=w85ccbd27a3494d7fd751547e3892b510″></script><noscript><a href=”http://www.librarything.com/profile/schlimmbesserung”>My Library</a> at <a href=”http://www.librarything.com”>LibraryThing</a></noscript>

WordPress is being a poop and won’t let me put this in my sidebar. Harumph, I say. Look at this handsome widget!

Monica Ali

Monica Ali – In the Kitchen

Feisty and tough, is how Monica Ali characterises herself. She is a novelist who creates controversy because she has the audacity to be both Asian and a woman who puts the spotlight on racism and inequality in modern Britain. She was born in Dhaka, Pakistan in 1967, to a white British mother and Pakistani father. When Monica was three they moved to Bolton, Lancashire.    Insomnia made her a writer.  When her son was born, he was a bad sleeper, so she worked at night.  Her children are now 8 and 10 but she still works in an obsessive way.

She describes her early life as a traumatic time. Her father was not able to leave East Pakistan (as Bangladesh was then known) and was not in touch with the family for over 9 months. 
It is from the north of England that she draws some of her characters in her new novel “In the Kitchen”, launched in Spain, in September, at the Hay Segovia Literary Festival.
Her first novel, Brick Lane, prompted the promise of book burning by Bengali men, because of her portrayal of the silent lives of Bengali women. Brick Lane was turned into a successful film of the same name.  When asked is Brick Lane a flight between traditional and occidental democracies”?  she said,

“The problem I faced was not from the “other” but was from the liberal press who told me – “you are not allowed to represent that community.  Your voice is not authentic enough””. 

Her second novel, Alentejo Blue, seemed to go askew, being based around an imaginary village in central Portugal. It followed a similar pattern, examining a collection of characters both ex-pats and Portuguese.
“In the Kitchen”, Ali returns to similar themes of Brick Lane, immigration and trafficking for prostitution, as she explores the internal and external life and breakdown of the Head Chef, Gabriel Lightfoot (Gabe). She calls him “a chef adrift”. As manager of a complex hotel restaurant, involving a staff representative of the United Nations, he begins to show the cracks inherent in a “modern man in his early 40’s”.   As a character he is frustrating, distant and lovable.   Some would argue not dissimilar to Ali herself.
For this book she spent time researching in 5 London Hotels.  The reasoning behind this she says is because “kitchens are high pressure places enriched with comedy”. This kind of “research gives you a foundation to take liberties and to make things up”. She contrasts her research with the sanitised celebrity chef culture currently sweeping the UK and her desire to go deeper “to go below stairs,” “to explore the terrain of immigration beyond empire and the change of immigrant – Eastern Europeans in fields, Somali’s washing up – to uncover the reluctance of the UK to go into that space.

She has written three very different books and she promises more, but refuses to expose her current inspirations. She sees herself as British and notes “there are different ways of being British”. Although having never been back to Bangladesh, she follows the news, and comments that her parents, in particular her father, tell stories of Bangladesh to her children “of fighting tigers.” She feels her upbringing has given her a foot in each camp. “It makes you observant.” It is like “standing in the shadow of the doorway, having to fit in on both sides”.   “Fiction does not work in straight lines.  A novel is not only a novel.  The problem with writing, with writing novels is that they are not engaged enough.  A novel has a special power.  It can do what other media cannot.  Non fiction proceeds by candle light in a different way.”

As a teenager her favourite writers were Dickens, Flaubert and Dostoyevsky. Orwell has been an influence on her recent writing. She is critical of the huge trend for memoir to be linked to a novelist’s writing. In Brick Lane, the inspiration for her protagonist a poor Bengali woman who comes to the UK to marry, was her mother, rather than herself. Her mother underwent a social and cultural dislocation when she married in East Pakistan.
When questioned further about racism and British society she goes to ground behind the mask of “I am just a writer”. Not least because “fiction allows you to explore complexity – to take a nuance and not be obliged to come out with an answer”.
One senses a fierce intelligence that has been damaged by criticism and therefore she flips between attacking questioners with one sentence statements such as “I should be locked up” or “what do you think? and frustratingly refuses to open up to any questions that go much deeper than the superficial.
She assures us that if she had any answers to the way forward for world peace she would be with the United Nations, not writing novels.
Indeed if the world was collapsing she would be reading, writing or eating and so back to “In the Kitchen”. As Gabe’s life disintegrates, the reader is pulled into a mire of confusion. While he is exploring who he is, a dead body is found in the hotel cellar, his father dies and his girlfriend runs for sanity. Ali seems to have the gift of prophecy as the book accurately portrays some of the economic crisis that has spread over the UK and London in particular in recent months. This is explored through the eyes of a Labour MP and a business man, who Gabe hopes will bankroll his own restaurant. His father sees the British economy as a house of cards with no foundation. The crucial question raised by the MP is “can you ride it?” or indeed as the UK has found in recent months will “reality come around and bite you in the end”.
There are some moments of humour, notably when Gabe is questioned about a dirty plate by a pompous guest. He gives the plate his own version of “spit and polish”.
In all, “In the Kitchen” is worth reading for those glimpses of humour, intelligence, characterisation and daring.

Holt, Penelope. The Apple. New York: York House Press, 2009.

Can I call this book righting a wrong? While it doesn’t go that far, I feel like it goes a long way to making a once-ugly story beautiful again.

The Apple is a love story based on “the Herman Rosenblat Holocaust Love Story.” If you don’t know anything about the Herman Rosenblat story The Apple is a sweet tale about how a young Jewish boy survives the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald. If you do know Rosenblat’s story The Apple becomes an explanation, a reasoning for the fabrication of a once-true (but not) romance during war; a story of love in hell. It give the lie a little more reason, if you will.

Rosenblat is a Holocaust survivor who claimed to have met his future wife during his imprisonment at Buchenwald. He was 15 and she was 9. He claimed she kept him alive by throwing an apple a day over the barbed wire fence, unbeknownst the to guards and other prisoners. Years later, supposedly reunited by a blind date, they fall in love and have been married ever since. Their story attracted the attention of the media and soon they were the darlings of the talk show circuit, including Oprah. Quickly, a book and movie deal were in the works. This amazing story needed to be told. Imagine everyone’s surprise when historians and holocaust survivors alike started crying foul. Details didn’t add up and soon Rosenblat was admitting he fabricated scenarios and embellished details. But, what of the wife? Surely she needed to corroborate the story in order to make it the romance of the century?

At times I found The Apple difficult to read. The subject matter is sobering, the details are intense. While it is considered a work of fiction, Hitler’s reign of terror really did happen. Concentration camps like Buchenwald and Treblinka existed as communities of torture and slavery. There is no denying the pain that Herman Rosenblat suffered and survived. Holt’s account of that time is raw and unflinching. Her writing is as strong as Rosenblat’s desire to bring a beautiful end to an otherwise painful history.

Romm, Miriam. Ostrich Feathers. New York: Gefen Publishing House, 2009.

I had a hard time getting into this book. Maybe it’s from all the head-in-the-sand burying I did about the subject matter in the past.

I have always said reading translations were difficult for me. I cannot help but question situations and details and wonder if they haven’t been distorted by the translation. Miriam Romm’s slightly autobiographical story of the search for her biological father takes her back to Poland where she befriends an elderly man she secretly hopes is her real father. Their conversations and efforts to uncover the truth of the past are mechanical and false sounding. I blame this on the translation.  When Miriam laments that she is an orphan despite having a biological mother and sister I blame the translation for a loose interpretation of the word ‘orphan’. When Miriam contradicts herself about sources or when ages don’t add up I again, blame the translation. Chronological order is confusing as well.
But, probably the biggest obstacle I had to reading Ostrich Feathers was the lack of evidence her biological father even survived the Holocaust. It isn’t clear what detail led her to believe he hadn’t been murdered by the Nazis. What evidence did she have that would make her, an otherwise smart woman, cling to the improbability that this stranger was her father? It bothered me at the end when she suggests she used the old man to fuel a fantasy.
While Ostrich Feathers was written with obvious passion and intensity probably the best and most fascinating part of the story is Romm’s research abilities. The fact she was able to recover so much lost information and family history is really remarkable.

Confession: I was surprised “Carl” wasn’t included in the list of acknowledgements. Was he even a real person? Was his character created as a literary vehicle for telling the story?

I recently gave a presentation to the Bucks County Romance Writers group about “Marketing Outside of the Box: Bringing your Book to Life and Keeping it Alive,” and it stirred up some common misconceptions about just what an author can and can’t do to promote her book.  Mainly, there is a pervasive belief that promotion is entirely up to the publisher, and the actions of the author can make no difference one way or the other in the success of a novel.

Okay, I think that used to be true to some extent. But these days a few things have changed.  First of all, all publishers are doing less and less for their authors. They tend to put their marketing muscle and dollars behind that huge book at their house that got the big advance…mainly because they don’t want to lose their shirts on it.  And for the rest of the books? Well….  You get in their catalog. Advanced Reader Copies get sent out for reviews. Um, and? Well, good luck to you!

I equate it to throwing spaghetti onto the wall and seeing which bits stick.  If a book gets a starred review and happens to win a major award, then cool.  Otherwise, push it aside for the next batch a mere 3 months later.  But if a book is beautiful enough for a company to accept it and to spend a year editing and producing it, isn’t it worth putting a bit more effort into? And if an author has poured her heart and soul into that work, isn’t it worth the author’s time to do whatever she can to be sure that the book doesn’t go quietly into the night?

Publishers are now banking on just that.  Why waste their precious resources on things like booking signings and sending out press, when the author could do that herself? Clever, right?  Now this isn’t exactly a spoken policy, and authors don’t all do this, but I think if you have a book out, or coming out, you need the whole eyes wide open approach, and you need to get busy.

You will have to work with your publisher to let them know what you’re doing.  At the outset, you should have a frank talk with your publicist at your publishing house about what you would like to handle, and how to do it without stepping on toes, or repeating what they do. You might find at first some resistance to having you handle some things, but since they aren’t handling them, what the heck? I think they are afraid that some authors may represent themselves badly, but once you show that you are professional and courteous, and once they have moved on to the next season’s lists, you’ll probably see that they are glad of what you are doing, and will be happy to get occasional “keep you in the loop” emails about what’s going on.

There’s a notion out there that you should take a good part or at least some of your advance and hire a publicist with it to get the word out. Nice. But what if you actually need the money for like, say, living? And what can you really get with that money that you can’t provide yourself?

photo by Pat Achilles

I decided I could promote WHAT I MEANT… on my own, and I have done this quite successfully at almost zero cost. Yeah, it takes tons of time, but I’d already spent tons of time writing the thing, right? And I have two things that a publicist does not: 1. Absolute passion for my book.  Remember, no one (not even your mother) will love your book the way that you do, and be driven to promote it the way you will; and 2. I have unlimited access to the author!  I can quote her in releases and features, book her at appearances, and connect her with readers in a positive way.

Just a few years ago, having passion and author access wasn’t enough.  You needed contacts. You needed a huge budget to print up ad materials, posters, bookmarks. You needed to go out on tour. You needed to cozy up to book reviewers.  Today, contacts in the media are readily found online. Okay, I’m not talking Oprah, I’m talking newspaper folk, radio folk, bloggers, book reviewers, etc.  Easy to find. Easy to send a personal note to, or a feature story to about an upcoming signing (with images of yourself and your book cover attached, of course).

And these days, it’s also easy to book signings yourself.  I’ve done SO many signings over the past few years, and I’ve booked every single one myself. Forget the cold call. Personally go to every bookstore within driving range, and introduce yourself, drop off info on your book (which you have printed up beautifully on your computer), and chat with the manager, asking if they would like to do a signing with you.   I’m sure if you were willing to travel, you could email stores in different areas and book a string of signings that way, and ta-da! You’re on tour.  This will cost you in terms of travel expenses, of course.  Remember that independent bookstores will be your most ardent supporters, so be sure to build your relationships with them (and shop at indies, and include a link to indiebound.org on your website so folks can buy your book through them!).

I tell booksellers that I will send out press to area media about the event, and wow, are they happy to hear that.  A few weeks before any signing, I create a nice feature story about the event and my novel, and send it out with pix. I ALWAYS get coverage. So if you don’t know how to format and write a press release, a public service announcement and a feature story, learn. Now.  The library has books that will show you how.

With color printers, you can make your own publicity info.  Printing bookmarks through a company is pretty cheap to do, but I haven’t done this.  Personally, I’ve never bought a book because I’ve gotten a bookmark…  I’ve created great signs on my computer and brought the file to Staples, and had them create large posters, mounted on foam core, that I display on an easel at my events.  This is all nickle and dime stuff, folks.

As you market, you need to think of who your audience is, what is your book’s angle, and how do you reach your audience in an unorthodox way?  You don’t want to be a spammer, or to spend a fortune creating junk mail that ends up in the circular file. My approach is to be the anti-spammer, meaning that I make an effort to contact people personally. And I use their name in my note. It takes a lot of time, but I don’t care. I’m asking for their time when they read a note from me, aren’t I? It’s old school, and that makes it retro and charming.

Author J. A. Konrath is a gifted promoter with a personal touch. His website (which he’s changed since I first found it) is loaded with advice on how to personally make a difference in the life of your book, especially if you follow the link to his tips page.  Start with Self Promotion for Authors Tip 6 by clicking here, and read on from there, going to more tips at the bottom of this page. His ideas are wise and witty and absolutely on target.

Aside from making personal contacts, another “outside of the box” way I found to reach my audience of teen readers is through workshops that I offer them to help teen scouts earn badges they need for important awards like the gold award.  It’s been unbelievably successful, and I’m in reprint again!  Because they were unusual, my workshops were also featured in Publisher’s Weekly’s Children’s Bookshelf and at shelfawareness.com, so remember that a quirky promotion can be news in itself.

Since my book features a biracial character who is half Indian, I contacted the international publication of India Abroad, and they ran a huge cover story about it.  I also contacted lots of great people who write about the mixed race experience, and they were really responsive. I was featured at AsiansofMixedRace.com, did a podcast with Mixed Chicks Chat, and in the UK, WHAT I MEANT… was a featured book on the site Intermix.com.uk.  I also contacted librarians via email who were in areas with high concentrations of Indian populations. The best part of all this has been the personal relationships that I’ve built with all of these talented and wonderful people and their organizations.  In the end it’s not just about selling a product, it’s about becoming a part of a community. You are building a future in the book-reading world.

So, what angles are in your book? What organizations out there would be interested? Can you write for their newsletter or blog, relating your personal experiences that tie into your book? Can you create a great presentation for their chapter meetings? Give an inspiring speech at their conventions? Give an honest piece of yourself to your readership, and they will respond to you.

This post would be woefully remiss if I didn’t mention a bunch of on-line stuff.  First of all, your website. You have to have one. That’s all there is to it.  But you can do what I’ve done and easily make your blog your website. It does all I want it to do, plus I can control it myself, plus it’s FREE! Then if you purchase your domain from a site like bluehost.com, they have a free redirect service. In my case, everyone who types www.marielamba.com arrives here. Can’t get any cheaper and easier than that, folks.

You have to get onto facebook.com.  The best feature on this is the event invite.  Create invites for all of your signings and appearances, and invite folks.  Pimp up your invite with added pix, links, and remember that once someone rsvp’s, they can then invite all their friends to the event too.  This has worked out amazingly, especially when I tell bookstores with facebook pages to do this.  My last event was able to send out over 500 invites!  A few days before the actual event, you can go to the invite page and message all invited with a cheerful reminder note.

Twitter.com can work in tandem with your invites, and press, etc.  Build up your follow list with librarians, booksellers, publishers, editors, reviewers, readers.  Then post on twitter links to your facebook events, or any online press you get.  Keep it short. If you leave at least 40 characters remaining, folks can easily retweet it to their buds.  And you can shorten your links by going here.

Don’t be a shmo. Also use these sites to promote other writers, other events, to praise books that you’ve read.  Balance is key, and you are part of a wide-spread community, so share the love.

Reader-oriented sites offer a great way to connect with your audience. Create an author page. Friend folks who have read your book. Friend folks who have read a competitor’s book and suggest they check yours out!  Here are the sites I spend time on: librarything.com, shelfari.com, goodreads.com.  Librarything and goodreads also let you post your events. Also, join indiebound.org and friend all your fav bookstores.

Booktour.com is an amazing site. Create an author page, and type in all of your appearances. They will automatically send out your appearances to a huge number of online sites.  And, I also suggest you go onto your book’s page at amazon.com and click on your author page. You can now add a picture, a bio, and link your blog posts here.  PLUS booktour.com will make sure that your appearances appear there as well.

Linkedin.com is a more professional site, meaning you can’t just friend, or connect, with everyone.  But join some groups, like one for bookstores or libraries or publishing, and then you can use that connection when you invite someone to connect to you.  Create a beautiful profile, and link your blog to it so that the content is always interesting and changing.  They give you a really simple way to do this.

Now, back to the human side of things… Involve your friends and family everywhere to help you in your promotion.  Like I said before, I’ve never bought a book because I’ve gotten a bookmark, but I have bought a book because someone recommended it to me.  I think J.A. Konrath wisely pointed this out on his site, and it really stuck with me.  So do encourage folks to write reviews for barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com, and on goodreads and shelfari.  Enlist this army of supporters to request your book be purchased at their libraries (most library sites allow this on their online sites, and require a library card number). Have them visit their local bookstores and put your book face out, instead of just spine out.  Hem, hem.  This comment may get some flak from the industry that actually pays to have a title face out on a shelf so it’ll get noticed faster, but if Aunt Minny quietly goes into a bookstore and does this, no harm, no foul I say.

One more thing. There is definitely power in numbers. If you can create a group of writers who will blog together, or do panels and talks together, you can turn any event into something noticeable and special.  I’m a proud member of the Philly Liars Club, and it has been an incredible journey. We support each other, and we are able to support independent bookstores through our special truth tour events. Are there other debut novelists that you can link up with? Other authors you know in your genre who could do a panel with you at the next huge convention? Power in numbers, baby!

So you can see there is a lot that you can do, most of it while sitting at home in your jammies in front of your laptop.  After I gave this talk about marketing (not in my jammies), the members of the Bucks County Romance Writers group all wanted to know when I actually found time to write.  I told them that in the last two years I’d done all this promotion, AND written two additional novels. I encouraged them to get to work.

I’m pretty sure they will.

LibraryThing or thingamabrarians a web 2.0 application, a book lovers dream, is a full power cataloging application. Consider it the “Myspace for books”, a way to catalog your books and make book recommendations based on other collective intelligence of the other libraries. Searches are generated by users and titles, authors, and ISBNs are linked through five Amazon national sites, the Library of Congress, and more than 80 world libraries. An easy online tool that aids in checking out other people’s personal library, who has a similar collection to yours, and swapping suggestions. Created by Tim Spalding in Portland, Maine, August of 2005, with over 800,000 users and more than 44 millions book cataloged, LibraryThing helps you stay connected to people with shared read interest.

According to its website:  

“A free account allows you to catalog up to 200 books. A paid account allows you to catalog any number of books. Paid personal accounts cost $10 for a year or $25 for a lifetime.” http://www.librarything.com/

The basic premise of the entire site is pretty straightforward. You can catalog all the books you own and use tages to organize your collection. What I believe draws users to LibraryThing is the social aspect. Users searching through the 80 libraries add tags, similar to Flickr http://www.flickr.com , to create specific terms categorized within their own titles. I stumbled upon LibraryThing because of a recent group project in the LIS271 course. It was then when I discovered the social aspect of LibraryThing.

My Personal Reasons for connecting through Library Thing:

• As way to connect and swap with readers that have a collection or an edition of a particular item that is out of print or rediscover your favorite books

• Helps users to resort listing on any visible category as well as learn to input author, title, publication date, and review ratings for a particular item

• Print yours or another collection for offline reference

• Keeping inventory of your books, especially with limited space in NYC apartments, and many of your books are boxed away in storage.

• Keep track of books that you lend and whose care you placed in hand (A very practical application for notorious lenders)

• Comments of titles that are useful for future good reads and

• The obvious social networking features like discussions groups, reviews, recommendations, and announcements that you would expect in a mega online book club.

So I joined — a basic membership is free, spent an hour trying to add titles. I have a small library of 10 books — a small number, and right now it’s on private, because I get overwhelmed with notification of many other Web 2.0 sites. Activities on LibraryThings can realm of a friendly debate, through reviews, and automatic connections through shared collections. I was amazed to discover that our entire class project was posted on LibraryThing. It was similar to a wiki like WetPaint http://www.wetpaint.com ; as well as accessible and easy to share. Ending on the side of caution, do not attempt to pursue a connection based on another reader’s cover…but connecting like minded readers through exchange of reviews and Profile Page comments is widely accepted. As membership levels within LibraryThing continue to increase it is very fascinating to watch this application; and to note the movement of users towards bibliographic cataloging.

For fun, I saw an interesting discussion of President Barack Obama’s Library: http://www.librarything.com/topic/41456

Hoi hoi,

Ben me eens gaan verdiepen in het LibraryThing en het is toch best wel leuk! Probleem is, dat mijn boekenkast helemaal vol staat. Dus dat catalogiseren duurt een eeuwigheid. Bovendien heb ik ook niet een uitgesproken voorkeur voor een bepaald genre, zoals te zien is aan mijn overzichtslijst.

Ik lees veel buitenlandse thrillers. Baldacci, Kellerman en Grisham zijn mijn grote favorieten. In mijn lijst staat slechts een klein aantal exemplaren, maar ik heb bijna alle boeken gelezen van deze heren. Ook producten van eigen bodem zijn in mijn boekenkast te vinden, zoals Kluun, Giphart en Campert (vooral “Het leven is verrukkelluk” is geweldig).

Ik zal deze toepassing privé niet gaan gebruiken, kost me teveel tijd en ik zie het nut hiervan niet echt in. Voor bibliotheken en mediatheken lijkt me deze toepassing ideaal; een prima middel om bijvoorbeeld nieuwe aanwinsten te presenteren en boeken te catalogiseren.

Ik kan me ook nog wel iets voorstellen bij een soortgelijke toepassing voor PKN. Een middel om nieuwe onderwerpen in de kennisbank te presenteren met daarbij de beoordeling. Ook kunnen bezoekers van bepaalde domeinen hierdoor contact leggen met elkaar. Of dat ze in het VK favoriete vakliteratuur met elkaar kunnen delen…

Dag,

Deze week staat ik iets minder te popelen om de Dingen uit te voeren. Vooral dit Ding brengt mij in een oerwoud van sites, waarvoor ik niet echt warmloop. Toch maar een bezoekje brengen aan een web 2.0-site. Om mij in een iets vrolijkere stemming te brengen, ga ik op zoek naar een humoristische site. Ik bezoek www.break.com, want de toelichting ”social humor news sharing” spreekt mij wel aan. Helaas zie ik niet veel grappige filmpjes. Al zet dit filmpje over de robot mij wel aan het denken.. zullen we over een x-aantal jaren allemaal een robot in huis hebben? Wel handig voor de huishouding lijkt me..  

Toch maar eens verder zoeken op het World Wide Web naar de wijze waarop andere organisaties met Web 2.0 omgaan. Want dat er veel toepassingen zijn van Web 2.0 hebben we in de afgelopen weken wel gemerkt: bloggen, het delen van foto’s en filmpjes etc. Maar wellicht zetten de sites van andere organisaties mij op nieuwe ideeën.

En ja hoor. Door diverse sites te lezen,  kom ik op aardige ideeën voor onze bibliotheek met enkele voorbeelden van de Bieb van ht Vredespaleis:  via Librarything een lijst bijhouden met de nieuwste aanwinsten, op del.icio.us  interessante gerelateerde websites verzamelen en op Flickr foto’s te plaatsen van de bibliotheek. Sommige bibliotheken gaan zover, dat ze medewerkers laten volgen op Twitter. Ook kun je via de site van de bibliotheek dan live chatten met een medewerker. Leuk om allemaal te lezen, maar of het allemaal ook wenselijk is??

Wow, I am SO out of practice with this thing…. It took me awhile just to get to the page where I could write a new post! Anyway, yay…we’re back!! Sorry that we’ve been neglecting this site so badly, but, well, just like kids we like to take the summer off. And extend our break well into fall…

Over the summer both Miss M and I have been reading extensively- if you’d like to take a look at my reading list/recommendations/reviews you can look at my Librarything profile, and as M mentioned before, we’re going to expand the scope of this site to include our favorite YA and Vampire related literature/shows/movies and how they relate to Twilight. We’ll get on that ASAP, I promise!

But first, let’s recap all the Twilight news that’s happened since we’ve been gone: Umm…New Moon and Eclipse are both done filming. The Robsten rumors are at an all time high. Rpatz seems to have some aversion to showing his pretty face these days. NM comes out in 19 days, but has mostly been released in 30 second increments. Swiftner (Taylor squared, Lautswift, T2, Taytay) is my new favorite speculation celeb couple. And the New Moon Vitamin Water commercials make me ashamed to be both a Twihard and a Vitamin Water drinker.

Anything to add, M?

Twilove- NSJS

That’s a great summary! I had no idea there was vitamin water though! That’s… well, where can I get some? Vitamin Water is a way of life for us Angelinos… we drink it like, well, like we should be drinking regular water. Haha.

And yes, we read. A lot. I unfortunately, don’t have a bookshelf though… so my books are stacked and stacked and some even form little bridges to other stacks of books. It’s very “British professor’s universtity office” if you know what I mean. I kinda like it… it balances all the Vogue, Elle and Allure magazine that are sitting nearby. Or so I think. So, between the two of us, there’s hundreds of books to be recommended (no, not exaggerating) so feel free to ask.

Also, the Taylor couple-thingy is too cute. I’m not jealous at all either… honest.

Twilove- Miss M

Hello and welcome! Not sure what this is going to be all about, but thanks for stopping by. I would love it if you’d leave a comment.

I was clicking through the books in my LibraryThing for some inspiration, and wrote some book titles down. . .  Eventually it began to look something like poetry. I added a little punctuation where needed, but nothing other than that. Each line is one title from my library. Poetry? You decide:

1.

Touchy Subjects:

Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages

The Forties,

Mad About the Fifties

The Honeymoon’s Over

Marry Me

2.

In Cold Blood

She’s Come Undone

Who Killed My Daughter?

3.

Anza Conquers the Desert

Quite Early One Morning

And Condors Danced

Into the Wild

Home Is the Desert

A Pagan Place

Pale Blue Dot

4.

The Home and the World

Are You Somebody?

5.

Once Were Warriors

The Emperor’s New Soldiers

Now Watch Him Die

Faceless Killers

Masters of Deceit

Bad Karma,

Babycakes.

Final Verdict:

Death.

(The Buried Life)                        

R.I.P.

6.

Born on a Blue Day

Under the Sign of Saturn

Breath,  Eyes,  Memory.

Growing Up Fast,

I Capture the Castle.

Another City, Not My Own

Composing A Life

Desolation Angels

The Other Side of the Dark

Flesh and Fantasy

The Price of My Soul

7.

All the Mothers Are One:

Madame Bovary,

Miss America,

Madonna,

Mama’s Girl,

The Daring Nellie Bly.

All Our Kin

8.

Beloved,

Grey is the Color of Hope.

A Bridge Through Time,

The Country Between Us,

All Will Yet Be Well

9.

Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate:

I Watched A Wild Hog Eat My Baby;

A Confederacy of Dunces

Drowning  Anna.

The Genius and the Goddess

Had A Good Time

Being Dead.

Fugitive From the Cubicle Police,

I Take Pictures For Adventure.

10.

Geek Love:

Pounding Nails in the Floor With My Forehead.

11.

Born to be a Cowgirl

(Gender Outlaw)

Her Eyes -

Listening Now-

Mapping Time.

Nothing Lost

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.

November is a bundle of nerves dressed as confidence. I am trying to be brave in the face of unknown in Indecision City. Thanksgiving looms large.

For books the list is short. Two of the chosen titles are monsters (each over 500 pages long):

• Dingley Falls by Michael Malone (in honor of Malone’s birth month)
• Empire Express by David Haward Bain ~ in honor of National Travel Month
• Invitation to Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey ~ in honor of November being the best time to visit India
• Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling ~ in honor of November being National Writing Month
• Last Lion: Visions by William Manchester ~ in honor of Winston Spencer Churchill

I will be lucky if I get to Last Lion since Empire Express is over 900 pages long. The other book I’m hoping to get to if there is time is Last Best Place by various authors because the best time to visit Montana is November and I’ve always wanted to go.

For LibraryThing and the Early Review Program I am reading Ostrich Feathers by Miriam Romm. I was notified in early October I would be getting it but since the book actually didn’t arrive until October 24th I have decided to call it a November book.  I also got word I will be receiving a November book. I guess I will be very busy!

ps~ I just received word my all-time favorite author, Barbara Kingsolver, is coming out with a new novel. Holy freak me out! I simply cannot wait! YAY!

October has always been my “hang on”" month. It’s the month I hold my breath for while waiting for September to release me. This October was no different. It started with a trip to Maine to see West Coast family (and a great foggy run), a trip homehome andandand Kisa got to go (yay), Hilltop got a much needed haircut, there were a ton of new Natalie sightings, and, dare I say, the promise of a Hilltop Thanksgiving? The end of the month was a little stressful – a lump in the breast and a missing ovary. No wonder I read so many books and here they are:

• Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis ~ sci-fi story about a man who is kidnapped and taken to Mars.
• The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis ~ coming of age story about a young girl who is a chess playing phenom.
• A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle ~ a ghost story about a man who lives in a graveyard for twenty years.
• Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters ~ a mystery about two unmarried women traveling through Egypt and being pursued by a mummy.
• The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan ~ nonfiction about the role of women through the ages (up to the 1960s when the book was written). Oh, how far we’ve come!
• House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier ~ a spooky tale about time travel.
• When Found, Make a Verse of by Helen Smith Bevington ~ a commonplace book full of poetry, proverbs and excerpts.
• Empire Falls by Richard Russo ~ a novel about small town life (read because October is the best time to visit New England).
• The Natural by Barnard Malamud ~ a novel about a baseball player (read because October is World Series month).
• In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu ~ a compilation of short stories all on the dark side (read in time for Halloween – you know…horror, fantasy, mystery, etc).
• The Life You Save May Be Your Own: an American Pilgrimage by Paul Elie ~ biographies of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy in one book (read for Group Reading Month).

For fun, I am rereading Mary Barney’s Ring That Bell (2003) because I want to challenge my cooking and make every recipe in the book. So far I’ve cooked/baked my way through nine recipes.

For the Early Review program from LibraryThing I was supposed to read Ostrich Feathers by Miriam Romm. It hasn’t arrived as of yet, so it may very well turn into a November book.

Getting the most out of a library conference – ENGAGE

Again I tweeted at LIANZA09. For me it is a way to engage with other participants at the conference. I am still working on being critical when I tweet instead of just sending sound bites out into the twitterverse. However, I though the quality of tweets was particularly high at LIANZA (#lianza09).

The programme is available here: http://lianza.org.nz/events/conference2009/programme.html and you can search for papers here: http://opac.lianza.org.nz/cgi-bin/koha/opac-search.pl

My whole library career has been in Australia so I was interested in to what is going on in the land of the long white cloud. Originally from NZ I received a shock (most people thought I was Australian). Sobering. I have lived in Australia for over 20 years but  a piece of my heart is always connected to NZ. Christchurch is a very beautiful City and my early morning runs along the river to the gardens were awesome.

Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Open source is embraced by many in New Zealand libraries – the community are big supporters of open source solutions such as Kete (digital archiving software) which got a mention by the National Librarian, Penny Carnaby in her keynote.
2. Collaboration & consortia is the way it works. Many libraries have formed alliances and consortia to increase their buying power.
3. Free broadband in public libraries is available through Aotearoa People’s Network and the network also encourages digital story telling using Kete.
4. I must investigate the Cephalonia method used successfully at University Otago for library orientation/induction – I didn’t get to see this paper but heard great things about it. A technique to invigorate library classes (Simon Hart and Charlotte Brown).
5. I heard researcher (Chris Brickel, University of Otago) get really excited about the possibility of social cataloguing/tagging and reviews (in the library catalogue). It made me cheer to see his eyes light up.

I particularly liked Rachel Esson’s paper Hearing from the people: designing effective user surveys (PDF). It included some pragmatic tips on making surveys more effective and how to get better response rates for example:

• People respond better to paper surveys
• Include less than 30 questions
• Pretest
• Offer incentives at the time
• If sending out surveys include a cover note
• Use coloured paper
• Include a stamped self-addressed envelop for returning survey
• What to include in your report – methodology, data collection, how big your response rate was, design, what software you used to analyse data, survey instrument as well as results and analysis

Chris Brickel’s paper Research in Libraries: The example of gay history was terrific. Chris talked about his research for his book Mates & Lovers: A history of gay New Zealand. Being a visual person I particularly like this presentation because Chris included lots of photographs of images he had found in archives and libraries. It touched on the sensitivity around dealing with material of a sexualised nature and that catalogues were not very helpful in helping him sourcing material for his book.  However, the archivists, librarians and people who wanted to share their stories or stories of friends/family etc… were the most effective way of finding information. As I mentioned above Chris was genuinely excited about tagging library records.

The highlight of the conference for me was hearing Tim Spalding of LibraryThing talk about social cataloguing. It was invigorating and his cynicism about library management systems and WorldCat caused a bit of a stir at the conference. But the evidence is clear there is a lot of people out there that like social cataloguing and they aren’t constrained by archaic subject headings and years of convention. It is an arena I am interested in as we will enable some of this kind of functionality in our new library system in the near future.

I think LIANZA is a great conference and would love to return to New Zealand. I have made some great twitter friends some of whom have offered to give me tours of their libraries – yay! I will be back in New Zealand in November and plan to take them up on their offers.

A Paróquia da SSma. Trindade de São Paulo está cadastrando os livros do seu acervo com o programa LibraryThing.

O novo site da Paróquia usa o sistema de gerenciamento de conteúdo Drupal

É muito fácil integrar as informações de LibraryThing dentro páginas o blocos de Drupal. Veja http://trindade.org/biblioteca aonde está exibido um bloco com os tags (palavras chaves) usado no cadastramento das obras (livros e DVDs) e em baixo da pagina uma janela com as capas dos livros. A barra da direita a lista demonstra os últimos livros registrados.

Um outro exemplo é a página sobre o Dia da reforma 31 de outobro.  Depois o texto está exibido uma janela com as capas das obras do acervo com a palavra chave “Reforma protestante”.

Cada vez quando novos títulos são cadastrados no LibraryThing as janelas vão ser atualizadas automatica.

Um ideia para outras paroquias ou dioceses e assim construir um catalogo virtual de todas bibliotecas anglicanas?

Einige weitere Netzwerke (denen ich beigetreten bin)  sind hier hier noch nachzutragen.

XING
Ist sinnvoll um geschäftliche Kontakte zu knüpfen oder auf sich und die persönlichen Fähigkeiten/Erfahrungen aufmerksam zu machen. Eignet sich in einigen Fällen zur Jobsuche, bzw. um neuen beruflichen Herausforderungen entgegenzutreten.
Es gibt dort jede Menge Interessengruppen wie Sport, Freizeit, mit regionalem Bezug, Weinfachwelt, etc. Allerdings kann mich das Angebot für eine Weinprobe im Burgenland nicht wirklich interessieren. Angebote in oder die Möglichkeit zum persönlichen  Austausch in meiner Nähe gab es bisher nicht.

BibSonomy
Zur Erläuterung was BibSonomy ist und für wen von Interesse:

Jeder kann mit BibSonomy arbeiten. Unseren Schwerpunkt setzen wir jedoch auf dem Gebiet der Wissenschaft, indem wir das Setzen von Lesezeichen für Studenten, Bibliothekare und Forscher attraktiv machen.

Aber nicht nur das Setzen von Lesezeichen ist dort möglich, sondern man kann sich eine Übersicht von Publikationen anlegen, die mit Tags versehen werden und für andere Nutzer, oder einen bestimmten Nutzerkreis öffentlich sind. Es lässt sich erkennen, wer ähnliche Sammlungen angelegt hat und nach Schlagworten (tags) suchen. Das ist alles sehr praktisch, da man über jeden Browser “nachschlagen” kann.
Also ein gutes Literaturverwaltungsprogramm.

Delicio.us
Hier werden alle Bookmarks im Netz abgelegt (können auch von einer Quelle importiert werden) und mit Schlagworten versehen. Meine persönlichen, wie auch alle bei Delicio.us gespeicherten Bookmarks lassen sich nach Schlagworten suchen. Das kann dann besonders praktisch sein, wenn die Anwendung in die Toolbar des Browsers integriert wird.

Library Thing
Hier kann man seine eigene Bibliothek eintragen, Rezensionen schreiben und mit Menschen in Kontakt treten. Bis zu 200 Büchern lassen sich kostenfrei einstellen. Es werden jede Menge Top 50 Listen zu Autoren, Tags, Bewertungen, etc. erstellt. Über ein Forum und Gruppen kann man mit anderen Mitgliedern in Kontakt treten. LibrayThing lokal bietet die Möglichkeit nach Veranstaltungen im Umkreis eines vorgegebenen Ortes zu ermitteln. Also wirklich tolle Features!

Die drei zuletzt aufgeführten Dienste finde ich echt super, da ich sie unterstützend für meine Belange im Netz einsetzen kann. Wirklich praktisch!!!

Es gibt also nicht nur soziale Netzwerke zur Freizeitgestaltung, sondern mit sehr nützlichen Anwendungen.

I am not a fan of social network systems, but when I arrived at the Ispra library I decided to join a books social network. Anobii was the choice.

The Anobii site is really nice, attractive and minimal as the Japanese style, but after three years I moved to LibraryThing for different reasons.

The main reason is that LibraryThing has more users I can share books with, especially in English. The other reason is that LibraryThing has been created by librarians,  so the system uses some specific librarian features as the Z39.50 protocol or the Library of Congress subjects. Great for me.

I am really happy for the new choice, but I miss something. I miss the minimalism of information visualization, a clear and essential layout of web pages. From this point of view LibraryThing is a mess: you have too much information, often badly arranged. There is no whole view of the project, it seems that every single application is appended somewhere just after its creation. They have a quite serious design lack.

Is not possible to have LibraryThing library approach with Anobii interface?

Curtain of books by timtom.ch, Flickr

Gruppenprofil: Twittothekare

Hier versammeln sich Twitterer, die ihre Bücher bei #Librarything katalogisieren. Twittothekare katalogisieren und twittern bevorzugt parallel. Damit wird die meist einsame Tätigkeit des Bücherkatalogisierens zu einem kommunikativen Akt, insbesondere dann, wenn interessante Fundestücke sogleich beim Einarbeiten in #Librarything auch getwitttert werden. Twittothekare verwenden gerne den HashTag #Librarything

Bei so einer coolen Vereinigung sind wir uncoolen BibliothekarInnen natürlich mit dabei. Wir sind immer auf der Suche die überaus wichtige und ernsthafte Tätigkeit des Katalogisierens durch Elemente des Vergnügens zu bereichern.

RT @esteinhauer: Neue Gruppe bei #Librarything: Twittothekare http://www.librarything.de/groups/twittothekare @jurabilis @wahlberlinerin @custoditrix @AndreasPraefcke )

Our group project is looking really very exciting, as after further discussion we now have a far clearer business statement: a guide to free and very cheap books in the UK.  Finding them, reviewing them, getting rid of the print ones once you’ve read them so that others can enjoy them.

We also want to include links to related resources that we don’t necessarily cover, such as libraries and local events, bookswaps and sites where you can review things and which will recommend your next read on the strength of what you’ve enjoyed so far.  We’ll also include book-related networking sites in this, such as librarything.com and readernaut.com

The main part of the site will be about finding the free stuff.  Here are some of the ideas we came up with:

• Your local library (well, of course) – such as a rough guide to finding out about it and using it, especially for those who may never have been in before or went once but found it too daunting
• Other libraries you’re entitled to use and reasons you may be interested in them
• Schemes such as Bookstart – http://www.bookstart.co.uk/
• E-books, such as Project Gutenberg and Google Books

I hope we can include the following:

• Self-published material such as zines and comics, for example http://www.zinebook.com/ and http://www.unshelved.com/
• Interesting newspaper columnists and blogs to follow - as this is so subjective, we’ll need to see what each of us likes and see how this could fit into the site

I definitely think we should have another page suggesting other places to go where not everything is free, but where there may be both free and cheap items available.  Once people have become hooked on books (as they surely will!) they may feel able to spend a little bit of money, so it would be good to give them that option.  We can ask around to find out what people consider to be cheap.  Places like:

• Book shops – high street and online – which we know personally are good for second-hand, remainders and other sales
• Second hand, independent and radical book shops, for example those which stock cheap and possibly free publications (such as zines)
• Perhaps a brief introduction to book shops on the Charing Cross Road and other well-known shops or markets
• Local and country-wide events, e.g. book sales, book fairs

As i said before in a previous entry, i really want to include independent retailers.  I hope to include zines and comics for a similar reason.  These are made by people rather than organisations, usually sold at cost-price, are sometimes completely free (like mine) or can be found online.  I haven’t consulted the others properly about this yet so need to see what they think.  Do these count as books?

This plan is brilliant because it could quickly become a really nice community web-site, aimed at people who think books (and even reading at all) isn’t something available to them, because they don’t have the money, don’t know where to start looking, or like reading and/or know a little about it all but would like to read more.

We came up with a few attempts at catchy, self-explanatory names but so far we’ve been unsuccessful.  (My suggestion of Bookdog was vetoed – sad.)

Since the group last talked about it, i’ve come up with a few: bumblebooks, which is brilliant but taken (although maybe a variation can be found), booktrooper (in the vein of readernaut), bookcrash (in the sense of price crash - but it sounds horribly tacky to me, somehow) and my favourite so far: Books For The People!  If the others like this, our logo could be a fist in the air… holding a book, ha ha.

As for project management, we’ve signed up to Ning to see what it does.  Before we meet up again on Wednesday morning (before the other module’s class) i’m going to mess around with Googledocs, then e-mail the others to get them to join in.

Next we must of course draw up our list of priorities!

Then: who will do what, how will we communicate… and that all important name.