HelpThing›Profile

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[edit] Overview

Every LibraryThing member gets a profile page. It is a chance for you to present yourself to other members, in text, books and other links. You can share as little or as much as you want.

Profile pages also include a Comments section. Comments can be public or private.

The Profile page looks and works somewhat differently depending on whether you are looking at your own profile or someone else's, and on whether a member is public or private.

[edit] Features: Your profile

[edit] Member navigation

The links "Home," "Profile," "Connections," and so forth go to other pages about you or other members. For more details, see member navigation.

[edit] Your profile

Collections. Lists all your collections, with links to see them in your library. catalog.

Reviews. The reviews you've written, plus a link to your reviews page.

Tags. A list of the top tags you've used and their frequency. Clicking on a tag takes you to Your books using that tag. The "see all tags" link takes you to a list of your tags.

Clouds. Links to your tag cloud and author cloud. Clouds are a unique visualization of your library, sizing your tags and authors according to their frequency.

Groups. Shows the groups of which you are a member, sorted alphabetically.

Favorite Authors. Lists the authors you have marked as "favorites." To add favorites, go to an author page and click "add to your favorites." Shared Favorites shows other members who have the same favorite authors.

Favorite Bookstores, Favorite Libraries, Other Favorites. Lists your favorite LibraryThing Local venues (bookstores, libraries, etc.). To add a favorite, go to a LibraryThing Local venue page and click "Favorite this venue."

About Me. A text box where you can tell us as little or as much about yourself as you'd like. Some members add formatting, images, links, and widgets from other websites here (visitor maps, counters, etc.) to further personalize their page. Per the Terms of Service, if you put music or video on your profile do not set it to play automatically (turn autostart off). Members who have just signed up will have a delay before they can add hypertext formatting or external links on their profile right away, as a precautionary measure to deter spammers. (This section is not displayed if you do not write anything in it.)

About My Library. More space for you to describe your library - either your actual library, or your LT catalog. If you have a unique way of tagging your books, a particular sort that you prefer, or anything else you want people to know about your catalog, this is the place to do it. (This section is not displayed if you do not write anything in it.)

Homepage. If you've entered a URL for your homepage, it will show up here as a link. (This section is not displayed if you do not add a URL.)

Also On. Links to your profile(s) on other websites. The link to "Explore your 'Also on' connections" shows you if any of your friends/contacts from other sites are also LibraryThing members. (This section is not displayed unless you add "Also on" information.)

Membership. If you are a member of the Early Reviewers program, a badge will appear here with a link to the current month's offerings. If you're not a member, sign up!

Real Name.

Location. Where are you? Be as specific or as vague as you like, although keep in mind that anyone can search this information to find other members in their area. Clicking on your location takes you to a search for that location on LibraryThing Local. You can also add your location from the LibraryThing Local page, where you you can decide whether or not you want your LibraryThing Local description to display on your profile page. Thus, you can display a different location (or none at all) on your profile than on your Local page. (This section is not displayed if you have not entered a location.)

Email.

Account Type. Shows whether your library is private or public, and whether you are a free or paid member.

Connection News. Links to your Connection News page, where you can see the books added, rated, and/or reviewed by other members with similar libraries or that you've designated as friends, interesting libraries, or watchlist.

URLs. Permament links to your profile and your library catalog.

Common Knowledge.

Member Since. How long have you been addicted?

Most Recent Activity. Shows the six most recent books that you have added, rated, or reviewed, along with covers and links to the relevant work pages, author pages, and review pages. You can disable this feature from appearing in your edit profile page.

Your Comments. If you have comments enabled, comments from other LibraryThing users will appear in this space. This includes personal messages that other people leave on your profile page as well as friend requests, notifications if someone has added you to their "interesting libraries", and notifications from Abby if you're signed up for the Early Reviewers program. You can also click leave yourself a comment by clicking that link. Comments with a white background are public and can be read by anyone visiting your profile; comments in pink were marked by the sender as "private" and can only be seen by you. You can enable/disable comments here or on your edit profile page.

If you want to keep a comment from displaying on your main page, but do not want to delete it, you can choose to archive your comment. You can view comments that you've archived by clicking on "show archived comments".

[edit] Right-hand side bar

Edit profile/account settings. Takes you to your edit profile page.

Members with your books. Lists other LT members who have similar libraries. The list is a link to their profile, followed by the number of books you share over their total library size. Clicking on the numbers will take you to a catalog view of the books you share.

"Raw" lists members with the absolute highest number of shared books. "Weighted" puts more emphasis on sharing obscure books.

Member Connections. Shows a list of LT members you have listed as friends, as interesting libraries, and as being on your private watch list, as well as LibraryThing Authors whose books you have cataloged. Clicking on the radio tower icon will take you to Connection News, while clicking on "edit/see other members' connections" will take you to Edit/View Contacts, where you can edit your lists as well as see who has marked you as a friend or interesting library.

Random Books from your library. What it says. (Not displayed, for you or others, if your account is private.)

RSS Feeds. XML and HTML RSS feeds of recent books added to your library, recent reviews you've written, and recent reviews of your books written by other people. (Not displayed, for you or others, if your account is private.)

Helper Badges. Indicate your contributions to certain areas of LibraryThing. For more information about helper badges look under Helper Badges and HelpThing:Commonknowledge.

[edit] Features: Other people's profiles

Most of the types of information that you can see on your own profile are the same when you view other people's profiles (although sometimes displayed in a different order), with some obvious exceptions - there's no link to edit someone else's profile, for instance. The links in the upper navigation bar will take you to their recommendations, statistics, etc. There are also some other options and information unique to profile pages other than your own.

Add to Member Connections In the pink box in the top right, there are three choices to add another user to your member connection list.

• Add to interesting libraries - this allows you to call out users and their libraries you find interesting. These users will appear in the "Member Connections" box on your profile page, and will be visible to others who visit your profile. The member will also receive a notice that you've added them to your Interesting Libraries list.
• Add as a friend - Friending is mutual; clicking this link will send the other user a friend request, which they must accept before they show up in your "Member Connections" box. Your list of friends is also viewable to others on your profile page.
• Add to private watch list - If you want to make a note of someone's profile/library without sending them a notification or having the connection be publicly viewable on your profile page, this is the way to do it.

If you're on the profile page of a member that you have already added to one or more of these three groups, the links will change to "Remove from..." instead of "Add to..."

Invite to Group If you think a member would be interested in one of the groups that you belong to, you have the option of using this link to send them an comment with an invitation and a link to the group. Clicking this link will expand the box to give a drop-down menu of all of the groups to which you belong, and a text field for entering a personal message.

Block This Member. You can block a member from posting comments on your Profile page. Blocking a member will not block you from seeing their posts in Talk, however.

LibraryThing Author or Legacy badges. If the member is a LibraryThing Author or a LibraryThing Legacy Library, there will be a badge here with a link to the author page and either the LibraryThing Author program or the Legacy project.

Books You Share. Shows books you have in common with that member. The list defaults to the first five books sorted alphabetically by title. You can expand this list on the profile page by clicking "see all works", or you can view it in catalog format by clicking "See in library". Clicking on a book title will take you to that book's work page; if the other member has written a review of a book, a "read review" link will appear that takes you to their review.

[edit] Notes

• If you put music or video on your profile do not set it to start automatically.
• Before LibraryThing got Home pages, the profile page served as most members "main" page. The layout and some of the links still reflect this older role. At least it's better looking than when LibraryThing started.

(This section is not displayed if you have a private account, although the Clouds link in the top navigation bar will still be visible.)