LibraryThing Press Information

Media Contact: infolibrarything.com

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 almost 5,000 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.

In April 2013, LibraryThing staff and members collaborated to write What makes LibraryThing LibraryThing?, a blog post outlining what we see as the key elements of LibraryThing.

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. Tim is married to HarperCollins author Lisa Carey. (Tim's LibraryThing profile)

Librarian. Abby Blachly, LibraryThing's first employee and head librarian runs LibraryThing's library efforts. She 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. (Abby's LibraryThing profile)

LibraryThing employs a number of talented people. More about the rest of the team on the Who we are page.

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

Quick Facts

• LibraryThing.com launched on August 29, 2005
• Based in Portland, Maine
• Over 2.5 million users have signed up
• Over 150 million books have been cataloged
• Users have applied over 165 million tags to their books
• After 14 years as a paid service, LibraryThing went all-free in March 2020.
• Over 1,000 library systems around the world use LibraryThing to enhance their catalogs. Syndetics Unbound, a join project with Bowker/ProQuest, and LibraryThing for Libraries enhance library catalogs with features and data from LibraryThing and Bowker/ProQuest.
• Abebooks acquired a minority stake in the company in May 2006 (LibraryThing blog post/Abe press release)
• Bowker/ProQuest acquired a minority stake of the company in December 2008 (LibraryThing blog post)
• Many talented people work on LibraryThing (contact us).

Logos and photos

Screenshots

Press Coverage

Press Releases

• December 14, 2017. LibraryThing Teams with the Office of American Spaces. (PDF)
• June 25, 2015. LibraryThing unveils TinyCat, an OPAC for Small Libraries (PDF)
• June 19, 2015. New integration between self-checkout and eContent puts a Library’s entire collection at the reader’s fingertips
• January 5, 2015. ProQuest Launches Brand New UKI Edition of Academic Complete
• November 4, 2014. LibraryThing for Libraries answers: What Do I Read Next?
• June 16, 2014. ProQuest enriches Ebook value with new content and features in ebrary Academic Complete
• February 12, 2013. Virtual Book Displays are easy to create with new LibraryThing for Libraries Widget
• September 10, 2012. LibraryThing debuts BookPsychic at Portland Public Library

Articles about LibraryThing

• Jo Grange, BookBrunch "Social networking for bookworms," April 2011
• 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
• Kathleen Dame, 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

• Library Lab Podcast, "The Velocity of Books" - David Weinberger interviews Tim Spalding, 20 September 2011
• ABC Hobart "Afternoons" with Michael Veitch, interview with John Dalton, February 2010
• 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.

• LibraryThing Buzz Page
• Google Blog Search

Speaking Engagements

Upcoming

• November 7, 2024. "Talpa: How to Build an AI Product for Libraries and Not Lose Your Soul", Northeast Ohio Regional Library System, 2024 Technology Conference: AI and Cybersecurity for Forward-Thinking Libraries. Twinsburg, OH. (Tim)

Past

• June 28, 2024, "NISO-BISG Forum at ALA: AI in Publishing," Speaker, ALA 2023, Sandiego, CA (Tim)
• November 9, 2023. "Artificial Intelligence and NYPL Collections Symposium," Panelist, NYPL, New York, NY (Tim)
• October 19, 2023. "Moles and Martians: A New, LLM-based Library Search," ai4Libraries, Online (recorded) (Tim)
• October 3, 2023. "NISO Plus Forum 2023 AI/ML Questions", Speaker. Washington, DC (Tim)
• April 27, 2015. New Catalogs: From Scratch & Social panel, CIL 2015, Washington, DC (Abby)
• November 8, 2014. Charleston Conference, "Crowd Sourcing of Library Services" panel, Charleston, SC (Tim)
• September 23, 2014. Firebrand Community Conference, "Metadata - What Works? What's Next?", Portsmouth, NH (Tim)
• April 13, 2013. LibraryThing Introduction/Demo, Ticknor Society "Organizing Your Collections" panel, Boston, MA (Jeremy)
• April 10, 2013. "Encouraging Reading in New Ways" panel , CIL 2013, Washington, DC (Tim)
• December 4, 2012. "The Libraries of Early America Project" , Scholars Lab, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (Jeremy)
• September 29, 2012. "The Future of Libraries" , Hingham Public Library, Hingham, MA (Tim)
• July 24, 2012. Early Law Libraries as Historical Documents: Recording the Bookshelves of Long-Ago Lawyers, American Association of Law Libraries 2012, Boston, MA (Jeremy)
• July 19, 2012. CILIP: Mobile Technology Executive Briefing 2012, London, England (Tim)
• May 30, 2012. Lunch at the Library Talk, Patten Free Library, Bath, ME (Tim and Jeremy)
• April 24, 2012. Enhancing the Bibliosphere: Bringing Historical Libraries to Life at LibraryThing, MITH Digital Dialogue, College Park, MD (Jeremy)
• November 29, 2011. On_Tracks Panel, Copenhagen, Denmark (Tim)
• October 17, 2011. Internet Librarian 2011, Monterey, CA (Tim)
• June 24, 2011. Independent Reference Publishers Group, ALA 2011, New Orleans, LA (Tim)
• March 11, 2011. Conference for Entrepreneurial Librarians, Winston-Salem, NC. Keynote (Tim)
• Janurary 14-17, 2011. Arisa, Boston MA (Tim)
• January 12, 2011. Microsoft Resarch Social Computing Symposium, New York University, NYC (Tim)
• October 27, 2010. ASIST 2010 Annual Meeting, "Defining the Limits of Classification Research & Practice" workshop, Pittsburgh, PA (Tim)
• July 21-22, 2010. WiLSWorld Conference, opening keynote, Madison, Wisconsin (Tim)
• May 16-17, 2010. Turin Book Fair (Tim)
• May 7, 2010. Northern California Technical Processes Group (NCTPG) Annual Meeting, San Francisco (Tim)
• 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)