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 690 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 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 920,000 users have signed up
Over 45.5 million books have been cataloged
Users have applied over 57 million tags to their books
Abebooks acquired a minority stake in the company in May of 2006 (LibraryThing blog post/Abe press release)
Cambridge Information Group acquired a minority stake of the company in December 2008 (LibraryThing blog post)
LibraryThing currently has several talented employees (contact us)

Tim Spalding (Founder and Developer)
Abby Blachly (Head Librarian)
Casey Durfee (Library Developer)
Chris Catalfo (Library Developer)
Chris Holland (Developer)
John Dalton (Sysadmin/DBA)
Giovanni Soltoggio (LT Europe)
Michael Bannister (Developer)
Sonya Green (lLibrarian)
Dan Raftery (Operations)
Stephanie Renne (Assistant Librarian)

LibraryThing is exploring relationships with libraries, to offer non-commercially motivated recommendations, tags, and other social data (see LibraryThing for Libraries)

Press Coverage

Articles about LibraryThing

Arrive, "Bibliophilia 2.0," May/June 2009
Nicholas Tomaiuolo, Searcher, the magazine for database professionals, "U-Content", May 2009
Kaite Mediatore Stover, Reference & User Services Quarterly, "Stalking the wild Appeal factor: Readers' Advisory and Social Networking Sites," Spring 2009
Cynthia Crossen, The Wall Street Journal, "Making the 'Read' Decision," March 6, 2009
PC Plus (UK), "Editor's Choice Award," October 21, 2008
Jonathan Shipley, Fine Books & Collections, "Dead People's Books: Putting the libraries of the late and great online," September/October 2008
Julia Roebke, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany), "Buch-Communities: Wer hat das längste Regal?," June 20, 2008
Enrico Franceschini, la Repubblica (Italy), "Metti i tuoi romanzi sul Web ecco la libreria dei sogni," June 7, 2008
Eric Gwinn, Chichago Tribune, "Organize your stuff," June 3, 2008
Luc Sante, The Wall Street Journal, "The Book Collection That Devoured My Life," May 31, 2008
Lauren Barack, School Library Journal, "Are You and Papa Hemingway a Match?," April 14, 2008
Pattie Barry, The Maine Campus, "Your books want a social network: Web site helps bibliophiles connect," April 7, 2008.
Martha Woodroof, All Things Considered, (NPR) "Web Sites Let Bibliophiles Share Books Virtually," March 20, 2008
Library Journal. President, Tim Spalding, named a 2008 "Mover and Shaker" (various links; see Thingology). March 15, 2008
David Jasper, The Bulletin (Oregon), "Web of literature", March 15, 2008
Ian Mount, The Wall Street Journal, "A Web Library Catalog Links With a Big Chain," Feb 2, 2008
Ellyssa Kroski, School Library Journal, "Widgets to the Rescue," Feb 1, 2008
Claire Ulrich, Le Monde, "Plus belle, ma vie en ligne," Dec 8, 2007
Matthew Kirschenbaum, The Australian, "Hey, the tomes they are a-changin'," Dec 5, 2007
Katie Haegele, Philadelphia Inquirer, "Visit to LibraryThing can bring together readers and collectors," Dec 2, 2007
Eugene G. Schwartz, ForeWord This Week, "New England Library Association Takes Stock: LibraryThing," Nov 28, 2007
Victoria Arnstein, theBookseller.com, "Out of this world," Nov 23, 2007
Kevin Smokler, KQED (NPR), "Nobel 2.0," Nov 2, 2007
Publishing Trends, "We Won! Publishers Learn That Everyone Loves (to Talk About) a Free Book," Nov 2007
Neal Wyatt, Library Journal, "2.0 for Readers," Nov 1, 2007
Claude Peck, Star Tribune (Minneapolis - St. Paul, MN), "Web gem: Librarything," Sept 21, 2007
Melissa L. Rethlefsen, Library Journal, "Tags Help Make Libraries Del.icio.us," Sept 15, 2007
Jill O'Neill, Information Today, "LibraryThing: Cataloging for the (Social) Masses," Volume 24, No. 8, Sept 2007
Amulya Gopalakrishnan, NDTV.com, "World Wide Web: A bibliophilic haven," Aug 31, 2007
The Daily Telegraph (UK), "Hot Links," Aug 23, 2007
Good Day New York, FOX, "Web Wednesday", Aug 22, 2007
Elske Schouten, nrc.nl (Dutch), "Een kijkje in andermans bibliotheek," August 10, 2007
Tim Thompson, Gainesville Times (GA), "Virtual library keeps track of your books," July 15, 2007
Marc Schultz, Publishers Weekly, "Business, Pleasure Mix on Book Networking Sites," July 9, 2007
Peter Darbyshire, The Montreal Gazette, "Writers and readers meet on the internet," July 7, 2007
Suzanne Rust, Real Simple, "Why not? Create a Book Catalog", July 2007
Teresa Mendez, Christian Science Monitor, "Peer-to-peer book reviews fill a niche," June 15, 2007
Mark Langlois, The News-Times (Danbury, CT), "Danbury Library first to join readers' network," June 10, 2007
Claudia Parsons (Reuters), "Book world tunes into Internet social networks," June 1, 2007
Chronicle of Higher Education, "Don't Read This," April 20, 2007
Siri Schubert, Business 2.0, "Building a Better Book Club," (print edition), "Beating Oprah at the book club game," (Online edition) 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
Peter Smith, The Forecaster, "Stacks upon virtual stacks," January 11, 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," Aug 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

Simmons InfoLink, "Unconventional LIS Jobs" (interview with Abby Blachly), September 2008
Jon Udell, IT Conversations, "Social Cataloging for Book Lovers", March 28, 2008
Sophie Guevara: Special Libraries Association, Bulletin of the Information Technology Division, "Interview with Founder and president of LibraryThing.com Tim Spalding", Winter, 2008
TheBookShow (ABC Radio National—Australia), "Tim Spalding of LibraryThing.com," December 3, 2007
Inside the Sites (blog), October, 2007
iCommons, August 16, 2007
Librarian 2.0 on Degree Tutor, "Tim Spalding - Future of Librarians Interview," July 12, 2007
Open Source Radio Show, "Weinberger's Miscellany - Interview with David Weinberger, appearance by Tim Spalding," April 26, 2007.
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

Past

November 5, 2009. XXIX Annual Charlelston Conference: Issues in Book and Serial Acquisition, Charleston, SC (Sonya)
October 22, 2009. Babson College, MA (Abby)
October 16, 2009. Potomac Technical Processing Librarians Annual Meeting, Gallaudet University, Washinton DC (Abby)
October 14, 2009. LIANZA Conference New Zealand, keynote (Tim)
October 14, 2009. National Library of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand (Tim)
October 1, 2009. West Virginia Library Association, keynote (Tim)
May 7, 2009. Massachusetts Library Association Annual Conference (Tim)
April 20, 2009. London Book Fair, London (Abby)
March 14, 2009. SXSW 09, "Kicking Ass With Controlled Metadata" Austin, TX (Abby)
February 9-11, 2009. O'Reilly's Tools of Change for Publishing Conference, NYC (Tim)
November 18, 20, 2008. Workshop DEA MediaGroup, "Nuove frontiere della cultura" Risorse e nuove tecnologie tra passione e professione, Milan and Rome (Giovanni)
November 19, 2008. Minnesota Library Association (Tim)
October 17, 2008. LITA National Forum, Cincinnati, OH (Tim)
October 7-8, 2008 Online Conferentie Nederland, Amsterdam (Tim)
September 17, 2008. Association of American Publishers, "Leveraging Online Social Communities", New York, NY (Tim)
July 17-19, 2008. Wikimania, Alexandria Egypt (Tim) (video)
June 12, 2008. Association of Christian Librarians, keynote (Tim)
May 29, 2008. Book Expo America, "Social Cataloging and Social Networking Experimentation: Insights from LibraryThing", LA (Tim)
May 18, 2008. Philadelphia Book Festival (Sonya)
May 1, 2008. New Jersey Library Association Conference (Tim)
April 15, 2008. Michigan Library Consortium Technical Services Conference (Tim)
April 1, 2008. Fogler Library, University of Maine (Tim)
March 20, 2008. NDAP International Conference. Taiwan (Casey)
March 19, 2008. Beta Phi Mu initiation ceremony. Simmons College, Boston, MA (Abby)
March 10, 2008. LAUNC-CH (The Librarians' Association The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) (Abby)
February 27, 2008. ALASC, Simmons College, Boston MA (Abby)
February 12, 2008. O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference, New York, NY (Tim)
January 9, 2008. Baxter Society, Portland, Maine (Tim)
November 8, 2007. CODI Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA (Tim)
November 1, 2007. Boston Regional Library System, Annual Meeting, Boston, MA (Tim)
October 25, 2007. Central Maine Library District, Fall Meeting, Augusta, ME (Tim)
October 22, 2007. NFAIS (National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services), New York, NY (Tim)
October 15 2007. New England Library Association Annual Conference, Sturbridge, MA (Abby)
October 11-12, 2007. Ohio Library Council, Annual Meeting, Columbus, OH (Tim)
October 5-6, 2007. Polaris Users Group (Keynote), Syracuse, NY (Tim)
September 24, 2007. Friends of Maine Libraries, Augusta, ME (Tim)
July 7, 2007. Readercon, (Abby)
June 29, 2007. NFAIS program on User-Generated Content and Social Media, "Community Wisdom" (Abby)
June 24, 2007. ALA Annual Conference, "Harnessing the Hive: Social Networks and Libraries" (Tim)
June 14, 2007. Irish Millennium-Users Group, Sligo, Ireland (Tim)
May 31, 2007. Book Expo America, "Using Social Networking To Build Author Brands" (Abby)
May 18, 2007. Southern Maine Library District, (Tim)
April 20, 2007. Ontario Library and Information Technology Association, Digital Odyssey conference (Tim)
April 19, 2007. Library of Congress (Tim)
April 19, 2007. National Library of Australia, "Innovative Ideas 2007" (Abby)
April 17, 2007. Computers in Libraries, "Cutting-Edge Tech Leaders" (Tim)
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)