LibraryThing is a

social cataloging A social cataloging application is a web application designed to help users to catalog things such as books, films, music albums, etc. owned or otherwise of interest to them. The phrase refers to two characteristics that generally arise from a mul ...

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serv ...

for storing and sharing book catalogs and various types of book

metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

. It is used by authors, individuals, libraries, and publishers. Based in Portland, Maine, LibraryThing was developed by Tim Spalding and went live on August 29, 2005, on a freemium subscriber business model, because "it was important to have customers, not an 'audience' we sell to advertisers." They focused instead on making a series of products for academic libraries. Motivated by the cataloguing opportunities and financial challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the service went "free to all" on March 8, 2020, while maintaining a promise to never use advertising on registered users. As of February 2021, it has 2,600,000 users and over 155 million books catalogued, drawing data from Amazon and from thousands of libraries that use the

Z39.50 Z39.50 is an international standard client–server, application layer communications protocol for searching and retrieving information from a database over a TCP/IP computer network, developed and maintained by the Library of Congress. It is ...

cataloguing protocol.

Features

The primary feature of LibraryThing (LT) is the cataloging of books, movies, music and other media by importing data from libraries through

connections and from six Amazon.com stores. Library sources supply Dublin Core and

MARC Marc or MARC may refer to: People * Marc (given name), people with the first name * Marc (surname), people with the family name Acronyms * MARC standards, a data format used for library cataloging, * MARC Train, a regional commuter rail system of ...

records to LT; users can import information from over 2000 libraries, including the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the Briti ...

, Canadian National Catalogue,

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "maint ...

, and

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

. Should a record not be available from any of these sources, it is also possible to input the book information manually via a blank form. Each work may comprise different editions, translations, printings, audio versions, etc. Members are encouraged to add publicly visible reviews, descriptions, Common Knowledge and other information about a work; ratings, collections and tags help categorization. Discussion in the forums is also encouraged. Items are classified using the Melvil Decimal System, based on the out-of-copyright 1922 edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification with modifications for standard spelling of division names (as opposed to the original names, which were spelled in accordance with Dewey's advocated spelling reforms), and modernised terminology.

Social features

LibraryThing's social features have been compared to bookmark manager Del.icio.us and the collaborative music service Last.fm. Similar book cataloging sites include aNobii, BookLikes,

Goodreads Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and readi ...

, Libib, Shelfari (now merged with Goodreads), and weRead.

TinyCat

In 2016, LibraryThing launche
TinyCat
an OPAC designed for the cataloging and circulation of libraries of up to 20,000 items. TinyCat is marketed towards small independent libraries, such as schools, community centers, religious institutions, academic departments, as well as individuals.

Ownership

LibraryThing is majority owned by founder Tim Spalding. Online bookseller AbeBooks bought a 40% share in LibraryThing in May 2006 for an undisclosed sum. AbeBooks became a subsidiary of Amazon in 2008. In January 2009, Cambridge Information Group acquired a minority stake in LibraryThing, and their subsidiary Bowker became the official distributor to libraries.

Publicity

At the end of June 2006, LibraryThing was subject to the Slashdot effect from a ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' article. The site's developers added servers to compensate for the increased traffic. In December of the same year, the site received yet more attention from Slashdot over its UnSuggester feature, which draws suggestions from books least likely to appear in the same catalog as a given book.

References

External links

* {{amazon Companies based in Maine Library 2.0 American book websites Internet properties established in 2005 Amazon (company) Social cataloging applications Multilingual websites 2005 establishments in Maine American companies established in 2005