Tuesday Thingers is now hosted by Wendi at Wendi’s Book Corner!

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!

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?

My answer: Yes! I actually spend a lot of time looking at the Common Knowledge page and find it very helpful. I especially love the fact that you can easily pop on and find out the order of books in a series, something that continuously frustrates me. I use LibraryThing’s Common Knowledge feature to remember the names of characters if I’m talking about them with friends or writing a review, and I also look at the original publication dates.

I also work really hard to add to the Common Knowledge feature, too. When I add a new book to my library and have it handy, I usually check and see if it’s missing tons of Common Knowledge information — then add it in. I usually input the first and last words, names of characters and, after I’ve finished the book, some good quotations. I think it really helps to enrich the entire site and makes the book entries that much more interesting! And Common Knowledge is a feature that sets LibraryThing apart from Amazon, for instance. If you needed to figure out the names of characters or important events in a novel, you’d have to scour reader reviews looking for something relevant. This is much better!