LibraryThing is a social cataloging

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-serve ...

for storing and sharing book catalogs and various types of book metadata. It is used by authors, individuals, libraries, and publishers. Based in

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metro ...

, 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 c ...

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 220px, Logo image of DCMI, which formulates Dublin Core The Dublin Core, also known as the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES), is a set of fifteen "core" elements (properties) for describing resources. This fifteen-element Dublin Core has ...

and MARC 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 librar ...

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 "mainta ...

, and

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

. 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 The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), colloquially known as the Dewey Decimal System, is a proprietary library classification system which allows new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject. Section 4.1 ...

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 The online public access catalog (OPAC), now frequently synonymous with ''library catalog'', is an online database of materials held by a library or group of libraries. Online catalogs have largely replaced the analog card catalogs previously u ...

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 Cambridge Information Group (CIG) is a privately held global investment firm focusing on information services, education and technology. It began as a firm providing services to academic publishers Academic publishing is the subfield of publ ...

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 ''Slashdot'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''/.'') is a social news website that originally advertised itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories concerning science, technology, and politics that are submitted and evalu ...

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