The great thing about LibraryThing being around so long? If we ever need to age-verify we can just say "Look they've had the account since 2005. How old do you think they are?"

OMG! We asked members what other social sites they use and someone said Steepster.com. It's basically LibraryThing for tea. IT'S LIBRARYTHING FOR TEA!

We posted a LibraryThing survey—a really long one. In addition to all the multiple-choice questions, we added an "Essay Questions" we emphasized we didn't expect people to fill out. So far 212 out of 381 filled out "Why do you love about LibraryThing?" 🥰

Calling all LibraryThing members—especially the ones we don't usually hear from! Fill out our 20th Anniversary Survey and let us know what you think!

A long-requested dream of power users. Some really great work here by Lucy and Chris.

Killed a spammer sending review-scheme messages written by an LLM that had read my profile. Although the LLM managed to mention I'm head of LibraryThing, it did not understand that sending spam to the head of the website you're on is not very good strategy! And God, I hate this kind of writing.

1/5 LibraryThing has changed our messaging from the older "inbox" interface metaphor to the more modern and common "conversations" metaphor. You can see the difference below, and a few thoughts.

Library Tech: I've made a handy tool for testing if a library computer can reach various common services, like Syndetics Unbound, HathiTrust and NoveList. www.librarything.com/serviceteste...

At #ALAAC25? Come to booth 1215 to grab some LibraryThing swag and learn about Talpa Search.

Signs of the (depressing) times.

All points still valid. Someone make me CEO of OpenAI, will ya?

I don't think there will be an AI-led programming-jobs collapse. But the rhetoric around it bothers me. We should remember automation and efficiency has long affected people who make less and have fewer options than we do—and that OUR PROFESSION did much of that damage!

"I wrote 'I am alive' on a piece of paper, and placed it into a photocopier. What I saw next has shocking implications." — Avery Edison (2023)

It's odd but maybe appropriate that @librarything.com and @harvardpress.bsky.social's Loeb Classical Library have almost the same "favicon" image.

You know how a few special people in movie credits have initials after their names, like MPSE or CSA? (Casting Society of America). And priests of religious orders have ones like OFMI (Franciscan Friars of Mary Immaculate)? Has anyone had both? Which goes first? @chicagomanual.bsky.social

As a lifetime dead-language nerd, I jumped at the chance to interview @lauraspinney.bsky.social about Proto-Indo-European and her new book, Proto.

Chicago Sun Times "Summer Reading List" includes numerous hallucinated books, including this from Andy Weir, about a conscious AI system "secretly influencing global events." Unclear if it's also writing Summer Reading Lists for the Chicago Sun Times.

Amazing. Includes a hallucinated novel by Andy Weird.

I'm lukewarm on AI. But I have one killer, personal one: language practice. Sometimes when I bored of my audiobook, I'll ask ChatGPT voice mode to create and read me short Latin stories and ask me questions about them. Here's an easy and intermediate story:

Other disciplines may claim that LLMs can do what they do, but since Classics is all about close reading, human classicists are still firmly on top.

This is a truly monstrous pun.

Discussion with a friend about how once-normal public interactions are now strongly discountenanced. There should be a sign—pin, hat, article of clothing—that says "I'm living in the friendlier world before cellphones, earbuds and default isolation. Go ahead and talk to me."

Dr. Carla Hayden will always be our Librarian of Congress ❤️‍🩹 1st woman, 1st African American Librarian of Congress. Your presence is a blessing to libraries. We love you! ✨ Thank you for your service 💜 apnews.com/article/donald-trump-library-of-congress-carla-hayden-20a1862ce6d2e0d51a84a37b264ce2ef

The Carla Hayden firing was so unnecessary and spiteful. Her term was up next year anyway and Trump would appoint her successor. What a small, nasty man.

A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope

🚨New Pope's mom was a high school librarian! www.distractify.com/p/pope-leo-x...

🚨New Pope's mom was a high school librarian! www.distractify.com/p/pope-leo-x...

Habemus larum marinum!

The conclave is on CSPAN right now. It's a stunning visual, and the litany of the saints is gorgeous in both execution and idea, asking the aid of saints from every age and condition—a third century Tunisian slave, a victim of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, monks, scholars and fishermen.

The Conclave is over! The smoke is white! The next Library Journal Movers & Shakers are out! www.libraryjournal.com/page/movers-...

Wonderful interview with Francis Spufford, on C. S. Lewis, Tolkien and children's literature from "Soul Search" an Australian Broadcasting show/podcast. www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

Wait for the Penguin version, coming in November. The self-published one has a tremendous, original idea, but—IMHO—well short of greatness. I'm thinking the rewrite, with top tier editorial, will be better.

New ideas in library cataloging! (From a Facebook cataloging group.)

BREAKING: @aclu.org says Trump deported a child (U.S. citizen) with metastatic cancer without medication or consultation with physicians. This is the second child with cancer he's deported. www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol... @rollingstone.com

We're probably going with Dell, but is there an easy primary or secondary market for web- and database servers in the Boston area?

1/2 ALATT post on a kid wanting to read Harry Potter. Angrily telling people not to read books, and how they're bad people for reading them, feeds directly into a hot, high-stakes, culture-wide preoccupation with policing good and bad books, good and bad readers.

I don't understand why publishers don't just post their ONIX files. Instead they make you jump through hoops. What are they worried about? Oxford UP just posts them. Does your dinky little independent publisher really need to do it differently? OUP: help.oup.com.au/hc/en-us/art...

Coming soon to @librarything.com

How many publishers are putting back-cover images in their ONIX files?

“The termination of your grant represents an urgent priority for this administration” My NEH grant has been terminated Incredible when the funding for your book about the educational culture wars is cut as a result of the educational culture wars You can’t say history isn’t relevant

Victory! Many in libraryland criticize the principle, arguing that libraries should be able to refuse to rent out their public space to bad people and groups, but government viewpoint neutrality is a cornerstone principle of the First Amendment.

I don't want to be a jerk, but surely most educated adults would get a perfect score on this? www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

My son is heading off to art school next year, focusing on comics. I read, engage in and think about AI a lot, and—honestly—I still don't know what the future holds for young artists like him.

Illinois needs to clean up his room already!

Partial hot take on Abundance. I agree with every word of Klein and Thompson's critique of the unintended, self-defeating effects of Democratic policies on housing, energy, jobs &c, but you could get 90% of this browsing random issues of Reason Magazine from 20-30 years ago.

What are your tech flash-bulb memories? Mine: ~1982: BBSs 1984: MacPaint ~1990: Doing OCR ~1992 Gopher-ing my way to the day's cricket scores at a NZ university 1994: Doom 1996: Backrub (Google) 2023 ChatGPT, with my kid, writing poems about Lovecraft in the style of Ogden Nash

I love the top four books on @librarything.com's "Our Favorite Comfort Reads" list. I totally get why the Murderbot books are so high up—and it's also a little crazy to see it up there. www.librarything.com/list/46378/O...

Shit. DOGE is raiding the Institute of Museum and Library Services *now*

Really interesting to see a visual of the number of bookshops in Ireland and the UK since 2016