Tuesday, January 13, 2009

I always make it back for Tuesday Thingers!


See, I wrote a review and posted it! Trying to get back into a blog mindset. I was on some sort of non-reading sabbatical the last couple of weeks and I have discovered it is hard to write a review if you have not read the book. Not impossible, which I sometime think when I read reviews on Amazon...but before I descend into snarkiness, yet me consider this week's TT question from Wendi's Book Corner and try to get some reading in before getting back to my real life task. I have a table in the basement with lines of Nutcrackers soldiers that need help getting back into their boxes to await next Christmas and they ain't doing it themselves. Believe me...I have waited and waited but no, they just stand there staring their creepy wooden stare, with their creepy wooden smiles.

Today's question: A few weeks ago, someone told me about the Common Knowledge feature of Library Thing. The statistics and basic information can be found through a link at the bottom of any page. Currently there are over 869,540 facts that have been entered. How do they get there? We add them!

It took me a while to figure out that you enter them from the book or author page. When you have a book or author page pulled up, if you look at the left hand side, there are a bunch of links you can choose from. One of them is Common Knowledge. If you click the link, it will bring up a section where you can add facts.

Have you ever looked at the Common Knowledge page, or viewed the history of changes/additions? If you were aware of this section, have you added any information? Do you find this information useful or interesting?


Yes, to all the above! This is just the sort of think about Library Thing that I love, totally useless bits of information that I can contribute to myself. 870,100 facts as we speaks...I love it! Ok, they are not useless, just useless to the vast majority of people but either way, I still love them.

Now granted, as with many things, I had not looked at it too closely before and until now have stuck to the more basic entries. I have added to the series info, an author award here or there. But now I see this entry called Disambiguation Notices. I have no idea what that is but I want to! Is that one of those secret librarian things? I also see tremendous possibilities here for time wasting and anyone who knows me knows that I am able to waste vast amounts of time but I am always looking for new ideas.
So I have picked a category....Dedications...and decided that today I am going to go through every look in my library and look for a dedication and enter it in the Common Knowledge. Let's see...1100 books...6.5 minutes each...10 minute break to feed Kitty, my imaginary kitty...a nap of 86 minutes...7246 minutes...120.7666 hours....5.031944 days.
Hmmm...I may need another nap. And a snack. And to call in sick to work.
But it will be all so tidy when it is done and my inner OCD loves the tidy!



8 comments:

  1. It really sounds like a wonderful feature. I'm going to have to really check it out more over the weekend.

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  2. You win my award for most amusing tuesday thingers posts. Have I ever told you that?

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  3. Thank you...thank you. Kitty and I both thank you because she is really the funny one.

    As my grandpop always said, if you can't say something smart, say something funny and distract them.

    Ok, I actually just made that up, but my grandpop would say that. If he were still alive.

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  4. I know what you mean about some of the amazon reviews, but I won't name names here. I will definitely be looking at Common Knowledge more in the future.

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  5. I've made that same discovery - it's really hard to write the reviews if you haven't read the books. I'm also just getting back into reading after taking a few weeks off for the holidays. Real life was creeping in there for a while!

    And I've given up on displaying my nutcrackers every Christmas - it's just too much trouble putting them away. If only they'd march into those storage boxes in a nice soldierly manner!

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  6. another fan of the nutcracker!

    I have decided that the problem is that most of my really good nutcrackers (I have a number of inferior ones that aren't even let out of the boxes anymore) are Santas and Santa does not know how to march!

    now the Snow Village is another issue....

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  7. LOL! Great post :)

    http://lookatthatbook.blogspot.com

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  8. :) Great post!! You always make me smile!

    I've wondered about a few of those categories within the Common Knowledge section myself. . .

    Thanks for participating in Tuesday Thingers last week! I've got this week's posted now.

    Take care and say hi to kitty for me, Wendi

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