Previous by Date | Next by Date | Date Index
Previous by Thread | Next by Thread
| Thread Index
| LM_NET
Archive
| |
I was just looking over it today for our small church library. You can add/change Dewey numbers but I didn't see any place where you could number (assign a number for a future library barcode) a book, and as of yet, it doesn't do a true circulation. I also couldn't figure out if the info could at some point be exported to another database. That would be important if you wanted to switch and didn't want to start from scratch. They are also working on upgrading their system for their non-profit or for-profit users, as we have different needs than a home library. I would appreciate finding out more if you get other responses. You can use mine in a "HIT" if you wish. Joanne Ladewig (A.K.A. "Library Lady")Library Media Tech Lawrence Elementary, GGUSD Garden Grove, California shatz@verizon.net Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic. Comments are my own and may not represent the views of GGUSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You will need to pay for your membership if you plan to put on more than 200 titles a year. I love my personal library on there. I've considered doing it for myself anyway. It's only $20 I think. Stacey Conrad Library Media Specialist Palmyra Middle/High School PO Box 151 Palmyra, MO 63461 "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." Jorge Luis Borges Interesting timing. I've also been looking into Library Thing, but my project is with a church library. This library has been uncared for for at least 7-8 years, so it is in a sorry state. Our little volunteer committee is just getting started so there isn't much to report yet. I knew from the start that I didn't want to do the manual labor for a paper card catalog, so Library Thing seemed to be a possibility. In order to test it out before bringing it up to the group, I did a test run with some books in my personal collection (I lived in Australia for a couple years in the 1970's, and have about 80 books about that country, some published in Australia, and some dating back to the 1970's. This seemed like it would be a good test group.). Here is what I've learned so far: the free version of LT only allows you to have about 200 books in your collection. You can pay for more holdings, and they seem to be pretty flexible-it almost sounds like you can set your own price. For nonprofits, it looks like the fee would be about $15 per year for up to 5000 volumes. 2 I used the ISBN # to search for my books, and was very successful, even for things published n Australia in the 1970's. I only had about a half dozen items that I had to create new records for. And, it didn't take long to do the uploading. I finished the (approx.) 75 books in about 2-2 1/2 hours (uploading and ad ding subject headings). Here's my big conundrum--For the records I uploaded that had LC subject headings in the record (you can't see if they are there or not until you upload the record), the headings were put in a 'subject' field. They are what they are, you cannot change or edit them at all. They are also hot linked, and when you click on a link, it brings up other books in LT that have this subject heading, whether they are in your collection or not. Over half of my books had these headings. For the others, I went to WorldCat and found subject headings, but when I went to edit my records, there was no 'subject' field to put them in. I put them in a 'comments' field, but found this makes it awkward when viewing my file in a spreadsheet ( need 2 fields for subjects). 4) Considering the age of some of my books, it did a pretty good job of finding cover art. I was very surprised that I got cover art for some 30 year old books. 5) A nice feature for our situation is that there is a mobile version of LT thing available, so people in the church who have a data service on their cell phone could add a link to the LT catalog on their phone. When they're in a local book store, they could quickly check and see if the library already had a book or not. I think that is a really cool feature. I'm still investigating what churches in our area are doing for library catalogs, and (when I get a chance) will do some more checking of LT to see if other church libraries are in there (I get the feeling they're there--but not easy to identify from their names). I have found a couple of local churches that have some kind of homemade library database (MS Access??) that is searchable from the church's website. Not sure I want to go that route either. I don't know how this will shake out. I like LT enough that I will recommend it as we move ahead. I hope this helps. Let me know if you have other questions. Donna Donna Nix Plymouth, MN dgillila@aol.com University of St. Thomas Minneapolis, MN denix@stthomas.edu www.stthomas.edu/libraries www.mnbatt.blogspot.com I knew I was never going to get money for automation so I started putting my school's library online with Library Thing. If you'd like to check it out my username is almostmls and the password is lincoln. It is useful because teachers can look up books and I have printed out a hardcopy, too. The downside is that although the collection can be searched by author or title, I've found I have to put in subject. I bought their cue cat scanner ($15) and it really helps in adding to the database but some of my books are so old that they don't have bar codes!! Or for some reason the bar codes are unacceptable and I have to enter items manually. I've found it's best for books and a little clunky for audiovisual material. However, this could just be my experience. My district is actually closing all of its elementary libraries. I have extra space in my library so I've asked for the books from the other libraries. But I haven't been able to enter everything yet. I took the lifetime membership at $25 but you can also do yearly for $10. I hope this helps, Diana Lawsky lawsky@optonline.net Lincoln School North Bergen, NJ I have used librarything to put up a large searchable booklist. You could certainly do it that way. But I wonder: if you are hoping to automate in the future, wouldn't it be better to download MARC records from the beginning? If you began by using librarything, you'd have to do everything over again once you were properly automated. I don't know much about the free open source library software, but I do know people who have chosen it, and are using it successfully. Koha is the best-known, I think. If you used something like that, then you could also find downloadable MARC records. You'd then have a "catalog" which was searchable even if it didn't have copy information. Once you barcoded your books, you could then enter that copy info along with call numbers into the catalog. And from there you'd be able to circulate!! If you post a hit, please include my comments without attribution. Thanks, and Good luck. ----Original message------------- > I have been appointed Library Technician for a small non-automated school library, but we do have Internet. Right now the catalogue is handwritten in a ledger. The principal would like to automate in the near future. In the mean time, I was wondering if it feasible to catalogue using Library Thing so that we would have a simulated OPAC for patrons. Anyone with experience using Library Thing please reply with suggestions. Thanks in advance. Patti Poirier Library Technician St. John Brebeuf School Winnipeg, MB pattie_poirier@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Internet explorer 8 lets you browse the web faster. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9655582 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book. To change your LM_NET status, you send a message to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL 3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * LM_NET Help & Information: http://lmnet.wordpress.com/ * LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/ * EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://lm-net.info/join.html * LM_NET Supporters: http://lmnet.wordpress.com/category/links/el-announce/ --------------------------------------------------------------------