LibraryThing for Libraries is live in our catalog! Tim’s explanation of LTFL’s inner workings is great and he says nice things about me and my lovely library. Now that I’m done blushing, I’d like to say nice things about LibraryThing for Libraries and the wonderful people who work there.
The entire process has been very easy on our end. I am sure this was a tremendous amount of work for the LT team, but for us, it was just a copy and paste. For other iii libraries curious about the process: we have not yet made the leap to WebPac Pro, so we don’t have access to the bibdisplay page. This meant more work for Altay, as I had to paste the code into the footer file, below the buttons for requesting and saving the record. As far as I am concerned, Altay obviously has a magic JavaScript spell, because he had new code for me to paste in about three minutes. That displayed beautifully and looks like part of our regular records.
I cannot stress enough how easy this was for Danbury Public Library and how much fun I’ve been having with our catalog. I was on desk yesterday afternoon and had two questions perfect for LibraryThing data. The first was a patron looking for a historical novel centering on or around Ellis Island. The second was a student writing a paper on flash fiction. A tag search yielded instant results for both. More than that, LibraryThing in our catalog is just fun.
Tim and Altay have both been very responsive and have answered every question I’ve had very quickly (even when I know I’m asking something I’ve asked before). Tim referenced “enthusiasm and sheer force of will” on my part. This is a nice way of saying I basically followed him around at CiL and sent him far too much email. He was extremely kind about the fact that I would not leave him alone. I am over the moon about this addition to our catalog and I encourage everyone who even thinks they *might* benefit from it to contact LibraryThing and sign up. I will do my best to post regular updates here about patron response and reference with LibraryThing.
For now, come and play!
Edit to add the Twitter version of LTFL: copy, paste, dance with joy!
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