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Ch2_pt2

Page history last edited by heidi@marketearlyamerica.com 14 years, 4 months ago

Librarything and the Power of Profile-Based Interactions

 

    For me, the most powerful example of this comes from a service called Librarything. Librarything is a website that provides a library-quality, searchable database of books. You enter the books that you've read or are in your library, and the system generates a professional catalog of your books. This is a powerful stage two activity that is highly individualized to me and my books. Without any social input, Librarything is valuable. It lets me track my stuff.

    But I didn't sign up for that reason. I signed up because I'm an avid reader, and I wanted a better way to get recommendations for new books to read, particularly books I can get at the library. I use the library frequently, and I'm often frustrated by the lack of quality recommendations. Beyond the rack cards with the top Pulitzer Prize winners or best beach mysteries, I have little information to help me in my hunt for great books. There's no section for "literary, plot-driven stories with strong female characters that take place in South America" or "ironic and wacky but not too over-the-top Eastern European romps" or "biographies I never thought I'd like that blow me away." Nor can I turn to the other people in the library for assistance. Yes, there are lots of people in the library who like books. But what if they don't like the kinds of books I like? How can I be confident that an unknown member of the book-reading community will belong to my particular community of readers?

    This is where Librarything comes in. It offers a stage four social environment that shows me all of the other Librarything users who share my books. I can see, for example, another user who shares my love of the poets Tony Hoagland and Jeff McDaniel, and feel reasonably confident picking up a book by another poet from their library I've never heard of before. The social web of Librarything is based individual by individual, personal library by personal library.

    The resultant experience is incredibly powerful. From the institutional perspective, the more I engage with Librarything, the more invested I am in my connection to the associated community and my dependence on the service. I’m unlikely to switch my allegiance to another book-cataloguing system because Librarything has evolved to be more than just a piece of functional software. The value is in the interactions with other users, not the institutionally-supplied features.

I think the last two paragraphs can be cut - you make your point well with the above text - HLG

 

    LIbrarything effectively generates a community space from a network of individual interactions. Think about the difference between Librarything and the public library. The public library is built on the top-down model. Build the space, put out the chairs, design the affordance, invite in the people. You could argue that people who frequent the library constitute a community of readers. But this is not a socially active community. The library gives me no incentive to walk up to another patron and ask for a book recommendation. Rules (or preconceptions) about talking in libraries aside, it's incredibly hard to walk up to a stranger and begin a conversation, even in a context that implies a shared affinity for reading and books. It's not enough to know that someone else is there. If you want to encourage people to connect with each other, it can't come from the top. It has to come from the individuals, from their self-expression.

    Of course, some libraries have wonderful staff members who can give recommendations for books or help users find books they might like. But relying on staff and even volunteers is not scalable. That’s like me calling my volleyball instructor every time I want to organize a game. It’s ultimately more valuable for users, and more sustainable for everyone, if individuals can connect with each other in the system without staff intervention.

 

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