Today’s question from the Boston Bibliophile: Members who have your books. Do you ever look at this feature? Do you use it to make LT friends, or compare notes? There are three tabs- weighted, raw, and recent. “Weighted,” which means “weighted by book obscurity and library size” is probably the least self-explanatory of the three, whereas “raw” and “recent” are more so. Do you get any kind of use out of this feature?
Do I look at it? Yes, but probably more because it’s the top box on my profile page than because I seek the information out (honesty is the best policy, right?!).
“Weighted” is the view I take most notice of, again, because it’s the default. In my opinion it’s more telling than “raw”. I recognize many of the user names in the “weighted” results as being fellow book bloggers or people I’ve seen active on the same LT discussion boards that I participate in . I had never clicked the “recent” tab until today; again, I learned something new this week, Marie!
I haven’t friended anyone due to them showing up on my “similar libraries” list, although I have clicked over to see what else is in their libraries.
(And now, a word from our sponsor) … Last week’s question about LibraryThing Authors inspired me to start an LT Author Challenge (with a gift card for a prize!), check out the details and join me here. I’m still looking for a button/graphic for the Challenge; the more-tech-savvy-than-me person who can help me with this will get an extra 5 entries into the drawing for the gift card!
Wow – that’s a lot more in depth than my answer! I agree that weighted is more informative though.
Yes, honesty really is the best policy – and honestly, I’ve never thought too much about the feature until today. But I do think it’s interesting to see what people have in their libraries – a little like browsing their bookshelves in their homes.
Weighted is definitely the most interesting to me
I like weighted the most but I only look at this feature occasionally, when searching out new authors or reads.
I’ve had people friend me when they look at my library, I’ve reciprocated because I’d feel it would be impolite not too. But really, I don’t pay too much attention to other peoples libraries. We all love books… the rest is icing on the cake!
PS Thanks for stopping by my blog. Good luck with the first day of school. I’m in the midst of tracking down the correct graph paper notebook — I substituted 8.5 x 11 bound for 8.5 x 11 spiral bound. Biiigggg Mistake. My daughter almost got kept in for detention. (I wish I was kidding….)
Swapna, kegsoccer and Joanne – “the powers that be” at LT might have designed the default to be “weighted” because it’s most useful … or are we finding it most useful because it’s the listing we see most often? (I go with the first theory!)
jlshall – yes, like browsing bookshelves in another person’s personal library; that’s exactly right (unobserved, even!)
karen – oh, good! I’m not the only one who doesn’t reach out to “friend”. Like you, I reciprocate, but haven’t yet asked for a connection (I take that back, after reading *The Spirit of the Place* I requested friendship from Literary Ventures Fund … but haven’t got a confirmation … months later! Clearly I’m not taking it to heart!)