Ab’s Blog

Librarians are totally the new “It” girls!

Fred Flare says so.

I’m fascinated by LibraryThing’s new UnSuggester, unveiled Sunday along with their “real” recommender system. UnSuggester gives you opposites instead of similar titles.

For example, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky overlaps least with Daughters of the Moon by Lynne Ewing. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins overlaps least with Wild at Heart: Discovering the Passionate Soul of a Man by John Eldredge.

It could make an interesting collection development tool–or at least a fun way to expand your horizons a bit, even if you don’t read the opposites.

You can read more about UnSuggester and BookSuggester (the actual recommender system) at the LibraryThing Blog. And you can try them out for yourself even if you don’t have a LibraryThing account.

Emdashes reports that the New Yorker will soon sell the Complete New Yorker on portable hard drive in addition to the DVD set already on sale. For $299 you get an installation CD and a portable 3″x5″ drive. Since $59.99 gets you the same coverage on DVD, I’m curious about their target audience with this venture. My other question’s been answered though; the description includes this: “Plus, there is plenty of extra room on the drive for future updates.”