ShelfReferential

Yesterday LibraryThing turned 1 year old. Happy birthday! LibraryThing is the leader among sites like ShelfCentered. Tim’s eye for clean design coupled with his nerdy book-hoarder philosophy make a perfect fit for the data-crazed digerati out there who want to catalog their stuff.

When I originally felt the pull of this idea, I really wondered if there was anyone else to whom it would appeal. Well, Tim’s growing community and 5 million cataloged books are testament to the fact that we’re out there!

I wish LibraryThing continued success for many more years. And if any of you LibraryThing users also want to catalog your movies, music or video games, or make wishlists, or read some history and background information about your items, check out ShelfCentered and subscribe to this news blog!

I am proud to announce that ShelfCentered moved a big step closer to its vision today, with the addition of Library of Congress data for books!

Now when you click all the way to the single-page view for a book on one of your shelves, LoC data will be displayed if it exists. This includes all sorts of cool stuff: not just the call number in case you want to grab the book from a library, but also its subject classification(s) and sometimes links to sample chapters and the table of contents.

One of the pillars of our philosophy is to give you rich information about your items. This always meant we wanted to use many data sources to gather background information. LoC is not so much a rich data source as an authoritative one, but the factual data forms the bedrock for further expansion.

When searching starts to be deployed, I look forward to opening up the search criteria to include the subject headings and the call numbers. Imagine browsing a virtual shelf that shows what books would be nearby at a library!

For you tag-crazy folks out there, don’t worry. Tags are in the works, too. For now, think of the subject headings as tags done by a central authority that is smarter than you, but doesn’t like lots of tags