August State of the Thing - LibraryThing

LibraryThing: State of the Thing Welcome to the August 2020 State of the Thing Newsletter. This month we have another treasure hunt, an interview with a medical library, and more! LibraryThing News Our treasure hunts continue! This month you’re looking for lobsters, to celebrate the 200th birthday of LibraryThing’s home state of Maine. We’ve hidden 14 lobsters around the site on pages associated with Maine subjects, authors, and books. Find lobsters, win glory and prizes! (B.Y.O.Butter.) The hunt is [here](. Discuss your lobster catch and work out clues on [Talk](. Legacy Library: International Space Station This month’s featured Legacy Library is out of this world! (Yes, we went for the pun.) What do astronauts bring up to the[International Space Station](? A lot of science fiction, unsurprisingly. The ISS has been continuously occupied for 20 years, since November 2000. Astronauts have arrived from 19 countries, with the longest stay by American [Scott Kelly]( with 340 consecutive days in space. About the length of a football field, the ISS has a cruising altitude of 260 miles (418km) above sea-level. Astronauts perform scientific and technological research for a variety of applications on Earth and future human-space travel (Source: [NASA](). Some features of the collection: - [State of Fear]( by Michael Crighton, because when you live in a (very advanced) tin can surrounded by an unforgiving void, you need more thrills in your life. - A copy of [The DaVinci Code](, evidently taking its mid-2000s dominance of the bestseller charts all the way to space. - A [Russian-English Dictionary.]( The official language of the station is English, but a dialect of “[Runglish](” has emerged due to the prevalence of Russian in crews involved with the ISS. - [Around the World in 80 Days]( by Jules Verne. As the ISS makes an orbit every 90 minutes—roughly 5% of Verne’s trip—this must seem quaint. Do you have any books that also made it to space? Check out the full ISS Legacy Library [here](. Interview With A Health Library We’ve been interviewing people in the book world who are affected by current events. This month, we caught up with Tim Kenny of [John S. Marietta Memorial Medical Library](, to ask about how their medical library is handling recent events. They manage their collection through our catalog for small libraries, [TinyCat](. 1) What is the purpose of your library? Where is it located and what population does it serve? We are a county hospital/health network library. We are located in Fort Worth, TX. Our population served includes physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and all other clinical, support, and administrative staff. We also provided patient level and consumer health support, but our primary focus is health care professional support. 2) How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected library use and services? What are some solutions you have found to deal with those changes? Yes, COVID-19 has changed our service model. The library staff has been working from home since late March. The library space itself is badge access so our community can still access our computer bank and perform after hours check out. We try to get into the space every month to clear the book drop and ensure all is well overall with the space. In our library we do a lot of clinical and patient care focused searches. Fortunately, we can do 90% of our work remotely as well as access all of our electronic resources. We have a lot of e-books in TinyCat and our limited print collection is available for checkout to those with badges via a rudimentary honor system while we are out. Check out the rest of the interview [here](. Did You Know You can see the reviews left by other LibraryThing members about books you have cataloged? See what people are saying about books in your collection [here](. Early Reviewers Early Reviewers is our program where you can win free(!) advance copies of books to read and review. Sign up to request books. Books for all ages and interests available. The August batch of [Early Reviewers]( has 2,733 copies of 79 books. The deadline to request a book is August 31st 6pm EDT. Talk of the Thing The Reading Globally group is creating a new list of 1000 books to read, [normalized by country population](. Lots of interesting stats and also more off-beat recs from around the world. Folks over in Gothic Literature are talking about the subgenre of [Folk Horror](. And the August Non-Fiction Category Challenge is on the theme of [history](. TinyCat [TinyCat]( is the online catalog for small libraries, created by LibraryThing. It turns your existing LibraryThing account into a simple, professional, web-based catalog. This month, we are offering a deal on trials for TinyCat. Start a trial by the end of August and receive a free, 60-day trial. (Usual trials are 30 days long). Check out our playlists of Tiny Tutorials on [LibraryThing’s YouTube channel](, where Kristi walks you through various features of TinyCat in 30 seconds or less. Hot Books This Month - [White Fragility]( by Robin DiAngelo - [The Dutch House]( by Ann Patchett - [The Nickel Boys]( by Colson Whitehead - [The Starless Sea]( by Erin Morgenstern - [The Silent Patient]( by Alex Michaelides - [Normal People]( by Sally Rooney - [My Sister the Serial Killer]( by Oyinkan Braithwaite - [Where the Crawdads Sing]( by Delia Owens - [The Institute]( by Stephen King That’s it for August! See you in September. Best, KJ This message was sent to {NAME}. Click to [edit your email preferences or unsubscribe from future emails](.