Media Contact

Abby Blachly
abbylibrarything.com

Contact for press inquiries, further information, or to schedule an interview.

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LibraryThing Press Information

Company Overview

LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. Because everyone catalogs together, you can also use LibraryThing to find people with similar libraries, get suggestions from people with your tastes and so forth.

How LibraryThing Works

LibraryThing is really two sites in one.

First, it is a powerful tool to catalog your personal library. Users add books to their catalog by entering titles, authors, or ISBN numbers. LibraryThing then searches the Library of Congress, all five national Amazon sites, and over 45 world libraries, and returns with precise book data. Users can then edit the books in their catalog, tag their books with their own subjects, and use the Library of Congress and Dewey Decimal systems to organize their collections.

LibraryThing is also an amazing social space, connecting people with similar libraries. It also makes book recommendations based on the collective intelligence of the other libraries.

Who is Behind LibraryThing

Founder. LibraryThing was created by Tim Spalding. Tim started it as a pet project, to catalog his own library and for academic and bibliophile friends. He had no idea it would explode like it did. Before LibraryThing, Tim was a graduate student in Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan, and worked for Houghton Mifflin in Boston and as a freelance web developer and web publisher. Previous projects include www.isidore-of-seville.com, www.ancientlibrary.com and www.bramblestory.com. Tim is married to HarperCollins author Lisa Carey. (Tim's LibraryThing profile)

Librarian. Abby Blachly, LibraryThing's "Head (and only) Librarian," got her MS in Library and Information Science and her MA in History from Simmons College. Abby worked with Tim at Houghton Mifflin, before becoming an archivist and then later a corporate indexer/cataloger. At LibraryThing, Abby's job description is "everything but the coding". (Abby's LibraryThing profile)

Tim and Abby are both available for interviews and speaking engagements (see upcoming and past speaking engagements).

Quick Facts

LibraryThing.com launched on August 29, 2005
Based in Portland, ME
A free account allows you to catalog up to 200 books. A paid account allows you to catalog an unlimited number of books. Paid personal accounts cost $10 for a year or $25 for a lifetime
Over 173,000 users have signed up
Over 11 million books have been cataloged
Users have applied over 15 million tags to their books
Abebooks acquired 40% of the company in May of 2006 (LibraryThing blog post/Abe press release)
LibraryThing currently has three employees: Tim, Abby, and John McGrath (developer)
LibraryThing is exploring relationships with libraries, to offer non-commercially motivated recommendations and other social data

Press Coverage

Articles about LibraryThing

Siri Schubert, Business 2.0, "Building a Better Book Club," April 2007
Donna Liquori, Times Union (Albany, NY), "Volumes of enjoyment in saving for retirement," March 25, 2007
Victor Keegan, The Guardian, "A new chapter for books on the web," March 22, 2007
Diane Richard, Family Chronicle, "Genealogy Web Sites Worth Surfing," (Editor's Pick) April 2007
Newsweek, "Bookish Friends," March 26, 2007
Anne Eisenberg, New York Times, "A Cozy Book Club, in a Virtual Reading Room," March 4, 2007
Joshua Gulick, Smart Computing, "Find it Online: Eliterate," March 2007
BBC Radio 4, "Open Book," February 18th, 2007
Killian Fox, The Observer, Guardian UK, "Diamondgeezer, 66," Feb 4, 2007
Colette Bancroft, St. Petersburg Times, "Bibliophiles, unite!" Jan 21, 2007
Melissa L. Rethlefsen, Library Journal, "Product Pipeline," Jan 15, 2007
Melissa L. Rethlefsen, Library Journal, "Chief Thingamabrarian," Jan 15, 2007
PC Magazine, "2006 Year in Review, The Top Five Services," Nov 29, 2006
The Charleston Report, "Making the OPAC Fun," November/December 2006
KMBC-TV 9, TheKansasCityChannel, "As Seen On 9," Oct 11, 2006
Kathy Ishizuka, School Library Journal, "A Book Lover's MySpace," Oct 1, 2006
Katherine Rosman, The Wall Street Journal, "The Way We List Now," Sept 29, 2006
Jamy Pombo, TheBostonChannel, "Site Keeps Track Of Your Books," Sept 29, 2006
New Scientist Magazine, "Living online: Give it a try," Sept 16, 2006
James Knight, The Sunday Times (UK), "Meet me at the clubhouse," Sept 3, 2006
Carolyn J. Sosnowski, information outlook, "Websites worth a click," Sept 2006 (vol. 10, no. 9)
Johnny Dee, The Guide (The Guardian), "Preview, Internet," Aug 12-18, 2006
Whitney Matheson, USA Today, "Web Watch," August 1, 2006
Jenny Shank, New West Boulder, "Addictive LibraryThing Aids Search for Western Books," July 24, 2006
Cade Metz, PC Magazine, "LibraryThing," July 21, 2006
Chris Churchill, Mainebiz, "Book Value," July 10, 2006
Jan Gardner, The Boston Globe, "Net gain for readers," Sunday July 9, 2006
Susan Wyndham, The Sydney Morning Herald, "On Cloud Nine," July 8, 2006
Aaron Rutkoff, The Wall Street Journal Online, "Social Networking for Bookworms," June 27, 2006
C. Max Magee, Poets & Writers, "Strangers Meet in Virtual Libraries," July/August 2006
Kate Heartfield, The Ottawa Citizen, "An unusual website that bares your soul," June 12, 2006
Steve Cohen, Public Libraries, "The Next Big 'Library Thing'," March/April 2006
PCWorld, "New, Improved Web," February 2006
Amber MacArthur, Call for Help, "Put your library online," December 1, 2005
Andrew Brown, The Guardian (UK), daily digest, "The Wrap"
Jim Regan, The Christian Science Monitor, "Do your own LibraryThing," November 9, 2005.
Jessica Burgess, Dallas Morning News, "Biz & Work Column," October 24, 2005

Interviews

Library Geeks Podcast, Episode 003 "The Thing You Do," August, 2006
The Book Guys Radio Show, June 15, 2006
Book Business, July 14, 2006
Voice of America, "Website of the Week," May 12, 2006
Abebooks, Avid Reader, "Collector Profile - Tim Spalding," Spring 2006
Emily Chang, "eHub Interviews LibraryThing," October 28, 2005

Blog coverage

LibraryThing has received an astounding amount of blog coverage.

Speaking Engagements

Upcoming

April 17, 2007. Computers in Libraries, "Cutting-Edge Tech Leaders" (Tim)
April 19, 2007. National Library of Australia, "Innovative Ideas 2007" (Abby)
April 19, 2007. Library of Congress (Tim)
April 20, 2007. Ontario Library and Information Technology Association, Digital Odyssey conference (Tim)
May 18, 2007. Southern Maine Library District (Tim)
May 31, 2007. Book Expo America, "Using Social Networking To Build Author Brands" (Abby)
June 14, 2007. Irish Millennium-Users Group, Sligo, Ireland (Tim)
June 24, 2007. ALA Annual Conference, "Harnessing the Hive: Social Networks and Libraries" (Tim)
October 5, 2007. Polaris Users Group (Tim)
October 2007. New England Library Association Annual Conference (Abby)

Past

March 6, 2007. Århus Kommunes biblioteker, Denmark. "Is your OPAC fun? (a manifesto of sorts)," (Tim)
February 1, 2007. ALA Student Chapter at Simmons College, "Life After GSLIS: Librarian for LibraryThing," (Abby)
December 6, 2006. Simmmons Student Chapter of ASIS&T, (Abby)
November 17, 2006. NELINET's Annual Bibliographic Services Conference, "OPAC 2.0: Reinventing the Library Catalog," (Abby)
November 3, 3006. ACRL, Delaware Valley Chapter, "The Future of the Catalog: Deconstruction or Reinvention?" (Tim)
November 2, 2006. Wisconsin Library Association Annual Conference, (Abby)
October 6, 2006. Frankfurt Book Fair, "Revolution im Karteikasten: Bibliotheken & WEB 2.0," (Tim)
October 3, 2006. NEASIS&T, "The Dawn of the Embedded Library," (talk by Tim; Tim and Abby on panel)
September 27, 2006. TLC CARL Users Group (Tim)
July 2006. OCLC, Dublin, OH (Tim)