LibraryThing for me started off as a way to keep track of all the new books, one of my responsibilities. I used to create a monthly Word document which listed all the newest, in both senses of the word, books that had come in. It featured a picture of the book cover, the book’s details and the shelfmark. Using Photoshop, I then created an A3 poster of the most important or interesting books that had come in that month
with all the same details and a description, usually taken from the back cover or flyleaf. As much as I love the quaint way of doing things, as well as going about things the hard way, when the blog came into existence, I realised that my posters and Word document weren’t suitable anymore. In fact they were obsolete, old-fashioned and just looked plain wrong on our brand new shiny platform. Nevertheless I carried on regardless, not thinking of LibraryThing. That is until, like Gregory House, a chance comment from someone provided me with the answer. I am now a total convert. I may doth protest too much, but despite its limitations and frustrations, it has since taken root in some of my other responsibilities too such as ebooks and faculty publications. It’s made my life, well, my job, so much easier. But in getting to this point, it made my job so much harder, not to mention more stressful and to tell you the truth, it still is.LibraryThing may be very easy to use and set up, but to make it work the way you want it to is a whole other matter. This is the time-consuming part, but once that is done, it is simple. Here is my LibraryThing comedy of errors:
- I created an account, made a list and then started adding the books. However simply typing in an ISBN isn’t enough, you first have to select from the range of different sources. I found Amazon is the best and am patriotic so I’m using the British site. It seems to have the majority of the books, apart from the ones that don’t have ISBNs or are very obscure. The sole annoyance is when they don’t have a cover image, you can either select one from a range of options as the default is a bland, blank and dark cover, upload an image or use one from the web using the image address.
- Once you have selected the correct book, most of the information is imported for you. So you only have to add the classmark and make any necessary alterations to the title and author/editor fields.
- The first major issue I had was working out how to put the LibraryThing lists onto the blog. I spent weeks and weeks in a winter of discontent trying to find a way round the JavaScript limitations on wordpress.com, on the help pages, both WordPress and LibraryThing forums and emailing them direct. It was a tale of woe, so in the end I gave up on the widget and posted a simple link. At first I thought when we transfer the blog to Wordpress.org, there would be no problems at all. But I must have jinxed us as the special WordPress widget doesn’t work properly either; the book link in the widget also won't take you to the place you want it to go to: the book's home page rather than the details. I burned, I pined, I perished, but to no avail. LibraryThing takes a lot of tweaking and patience, as Miranda Hart would say, "Such fun!"
- Another problem is direct links to ebooks. You can’t post a simple link into any of the fields, but it took a week or so before I discovered a solution; you can put html code into the reviews or comments fields. That’s when I discovered LibraryThing has even limited the code so you can’t make the link open in a new tab or window, so it will only open in the same tab or window unless you right click. This is annoying, but you can live with it. You will find your expectations broken like that a lot when using LibraryThing, slowly wearing you down like Rafael Nadal breaks his opponents' spirits; “it has to do that” turns into “that’ll have to do.”
- Finally, each list has a permanent link which you can use. The lists can be customised as you like it, so that it appears with all the relevant details including ebook direct links, the tags and the classmark. Annoyingly, it won’t automatically appear and you have to accept the ‘suggested viewing style’ before it will, otherwise it uses a default style which includes basic details; tags are incorporated, as well as the standard title, author and date, but not the comments field so none of my links. The default also includes the star ratings and entry date which are most likely irrelevant; fair is foul and foul is fair.
Now instead of the documents and posters, I simply update the LibraryThing link on the blog so it goes to the latest new books list and write a short blog post, usually including any particularly interesting books that have come in that month. When we migrate to the new blog next month, I’ll just have to update the widget so it shows the latest books.
I have since branched out from the new books and created a comprehensive list of faculty publications: those books written by members of our staff. 
I also have started to add a list of ebooks, but it quickly became too unwieldy. Instead of creating lots of lists categorised by theme, I’ve discovered the tagging feature and spent the best part of a week labelling each book with the best descriptive tags possible, tying them in with all the other books on the list, whilst simultaneously trying to keep them relevant, concise and clear. This was no easy task as I had to remember what my tags were, juggling them all in my head, or referring to the ever increasing tags list, doubling back on myself each time I created new tags and using the subject field on the catalogue to help me with the less classifiable books. As some of the titles cross over into the other lists, and there are a few that are a faculty publication, new book and ebook, I soon found I had to tag all 304 books I have added so far to the LibraryThing lists. That’s why it took so long. Now you can simply click on a tag and see all the books that have that tag. However the tags will initially work within the particular list you’re in; you have to select the ‘All collections’ list to search them all. Once I have added all the ebooks on though, it will work to its full potential. It makes browsing the lists so much easier. LibraryThing may have a catalogue of flaws, but as a catalogue, it’s flawless. All's well that ends well. My job is made easier and it makes our students’ lives easier too, the rest is silence.
