400,000 LTFL Reviews

We now have over 400,000 reviews vetted and available for LibraryThing for Libraries. (Last June we hit 300,000, so over 100,000 reviews have been added in the past 8 months—not bad.)

400,000 is a lot of reviews. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, for example, has 117 reviews. Now you probably don't need to read over 100 reviews. But if a popular book gets that many, then the more obscure books in your catalog could have 20, 10, or 5 reviews. LTFL reviews cover the bestsellers but they also reach down the long tail.

The LTFL Reviews Enhancement also comes with blog widgets and a Facebook application allow your patrons to show off their reviews—and their love for your library—where they "live" online.

The Reviews Enhancement is currently available for Horizon, iBistro, Webvoyage, Voyager 7, Koha, Evergreen, WebPac, WebPac Pro, and Polaris 3.6. We're always expanding this list, so if your OPAC isn't one of these, email abby@librarything.com and we can work on adding support for it.

For more information, email me (abby@librarything.com). For ordering information, contact Peder Christensen at Bowker—877-340-2400 or Peder.Christensen@bowker.com.

Categories for your LTFL Reviews

Teen reviews from Seattle Public Library

Library home page | Get this widget

We've a new feature to LibraryThing for Libraries, suggested by Lare over at the Seattle Public Library. He was looking for a way to show off just some of their reviews—reviews for their summer reading program.

Libraries can now add "categories" for their reviewers to check off—library book club books, Big Read books, reviews by library staff, etc. And the library can show off just one category of reviews in their LTFL blog widget.

Seattle has made blog-widget pages for their kids section, teen section, and even their adult section of the site. By categorizing the reviews into age-related groups, they can feature items in their catalog that would interest the patrons for each demographic.

We'll be releasing some more cool features at American Library Association meeting in Chicago next week.

Category Feature Added to LTFL Reviews

We've added a new feature to the LibraryThing for Libraries Reviews Enhancement: the ability to categorize reviews for the blog widget.

Thus far, library patrons have been able to write reviews and rate books in their library's catalog, add their reviews to their Facebook page and even create a widget that lets them show off their reviews on blogs and websites.

Now, libraries can show off reviews written by their patrons for specific library programs. Patrons and librarians can add categories to a review. The library can then create blog widgets with said categories – keep track of reviews for the Summer Reading Program, One Book, One City and book discussion groups.

This should be helpful all year round, but the inspiration for the feature came from a librarian's request to manage the reviews children were going to be writing for the summer reading program at their library. They wanted some way to display the reviews separately from the rest of the reviews coming in.

Anyone who's bought the Reviews Enhancement can use this feature starting immediately. Read here for instructions how to add and use it.

If you'd like more information about LTFL, and the enhancements that can take your OPAC from Library 1.0 to Library 2.0 overnight, fill out the interest form on the LTFL page.

The Reviews Enhancement isn't available for all OPACs – currently, it supports Horizon, iBistro, iLink, eLibrary, Webvoyage, Voyager 7, WebPac, WebPac Pro and Koha. More are coming soon!