What kinds of events should be on LT local?

I'm sure there's been discussion of this question somewhere else, but it's hard to keep track of the many Local-related threads on the main talk page and here.
Are the events listed on LT local supposed to be book-related, reading-related, or writing-related events, for the most part?
When I looked at my Local page for Los Angeles today, I noticed several events for something called the American Girls store - a few of the events listed for that venue are book signings with authors, and I can understand why those would be listed on LT Local, but the other events look like commercial promotions by the store. I'm not really sure what American Girls is - and I'm happy to be corrected - but from the website it doesn't look like it is primarily book-related (there are dolls, movies, etc.). What do people think about this kind of thing?
Edited: I'll modify that slightly - it does look like the brand also includes a series of books, but I'm still curious about the events question, because the events don't all seem connected to the books.

The American Girls collection all started out with a number of series of books, which I loved as a kid. The idea was that you would give a little girl books about girls growing up in different times in American history. The books would have companion dolls with outfits and accessories that paralleled the stories. It was all meant as a way to get young girls to have fun reading and learning about history (it certainly worked on me!). However, I think the original makers of the American Girls dolls and books were bought out by another company (I think the people who make Barbie, but I'm not sure), and my understanding is that the focus has gone off the books, and there are now dolls that have nothing to do with the books at all. However, I haven't done much more than nostalgically leaf through the catalogue in awhile, so I'm happy to be corrected about the current incarnation American Girls.

As far as the LibraryThing Local events, I think that fans of, say, the Josefina books would want to hear about the 'Josefina Birthday Celebration' event since it's celebrating a book series and book character they enjoy. The event about learning how to make paper dolls might be a bit of a harder sell.

Well, I put in an American Girls event that takes place at one of the libraries near me. It's billed as a historical enrichment program based on the Josephina AG series which takes place in New Mexico. I thought that might be something that would enhance the reading experience of the girls who attend. But events focusing on the dolls I probably would not put in.

I have one generic conference on Gabriel Garcia Marquez listed. Also, the basic choice lists does include "promotes" which implies that any "author tour thing" works.

I mostly focus on book-related events when entering them, but when the venue itself claims its page, they will probably enter whatever they wish to post as events in order to promote themselves. I know it clutters up the list in a dense event rich place like New York City, but as Tim said somewhere, I'd be interested in events at my local libraries and area in a general sense.

Thanks for the responses. Now that I know that American Girls started as a series of books, it makes more sense why these would be on LT Local.

Wow, guess American Girl is a touchy subject, this is the second time I've had to defend myself about this.

I entered the American Girl store events. I only entered the events that had some kind of connection to the books - the birthday events were easy since they are about the *characters* and not the dolls.

I entered some of the crafting events since they seemed to tie into the books - the paper doll event states in the description that it's based on their own paper doll book, and there's a paper lantern workshop which I ended up entering since it seems designed to echo something that happened in the Kit books. To me, both those events seem designed to engage girls in the books further, so as far as I'm concerned, they count.

Things I would not include: doll tea parties, doll salon events, or any of the many girl self-help events they seem to have (like personal finance for little girls - seriously!)

>>2 legxleg:

The AG franchise (and sadly, it is now a "franchise") is still very much about the characters, and of course the characters are defined by their books. It doesn't seem like anything new is introduced without an accompanying book, so at least there's that much. What I can't say is whether the book comes first or is an afterthought to the merchandise. Maybe it goes both ways.

Oh, and yes, they were bought by Mattel in 1998, and that's when the whole AG thing exploded into a culture of privilege.

I wouldn't say touchy, I just didn't know what American Girl was, and it didn't immediately look like it had anything to do with books. (I was actually concerned that (non-book) stores might be using the site for non-book-related advertising and promotion.)
But I'm convinced now about American Girl - convinced that is that kids who read the books might be interested in these events because of the books.

Oh, it's not you in particular, it's just that someone else brought this up on another thread for pretty much the exact same reason. I actually think it's a bit funny.

The other person was also in the LA area, which just tells me that you guys need more events listed. I'd help, but maybe I've already done enough damage here in NYC. ^_^;;;

It would be nice if schools could list book sales. Also, I don't see any used book stores listed in my local, although they do exist. Is it alright to add used book stores?

>10 vq5p9: Yes, please enter used book stores. :)

Is it alright to add used book stores?

Certainly!

I've entered a dozen myself. You can school book sales as "fairs" (which is the catch all for book sales events), or you can enter the school as an "other" venue (I've done that for a few colleges when I couldn't locate the library's civic address).

To be fair and give this due process...

Belongs or doesn't belong?

http://www.librarything.com/venue/23489/Interweave-Bead-Fest---Philadelphia

(I'm pretty sure this is a "doesn't belong." I just hate making unilateral decisions sometimes.)

> 14

No, it absolutely does not belong! If you do delete it, though, you might drop a comment to the person who entered it explaining why.

>14 lampbane: The person has over 50 books on beading in their cataloge. Having been to gem/bead shows myself, there are a fair number of books, demos and authors on hand for particular crafts...depending on how big the event is (i.e. annual events = bigger draws; monthly events = really just sales).

Just tossing out the other side of the coin.

>14 lampbane:-16 Seven LT members own a book written by the person teaching the course.

Edited to add: There are several classes available at the bead-fest; however, the person who entered the event only added the classes taught by someone who has also written a book.

> 17

If we are adding "classes taught by someone who has also written a book", where will it end? Pretty much every university professor (at least if she has tenure) has written a book. Does that mean we enter every class she teaches? Every paper she delivers?

That way madness lies.

>18 lilithcat: I don't get the logic.

Last I checked, Universities expect you to be an enrolled student in order to audit a course. Even then, most professors have the right to say whether or not you can audit the course and reserve the right to state that you'll turn in work as if you were an enrolled student - I know that several Sororities and Fraternities thought that would be an easy way to grab notes without work.

We can't say "no" simply because we imagine something worse. If something worse happens, then the something worse is addressed.

In this case, this is a chance to interact with an author that has books owned and listed on LT. The author happens to write craft-based books and will be doing the obvious - a demo of her specialty.

Would you have said no to this:

http://www.foodandwine.com/promo/classic/speakers.html

TONS of authors. Yes, the event is food-related, but you can meet a lot of cookbook authors. Who knows, maybe this is the year my husband happens to be looking at Padma Lakshmi's LT page with said event listed and says, "wow, we should go to the Aspen Food & Wine Festival for no particular reason..."

I think the key here is to request that whoever enters a venue please add a note in the description or with an event as to what *exactly* is the venue's connection with authors or books.

> 19

The logic is that many people who have written books give lectures and classes and such that have nothing to do with their books.

but you can meet a lot of cookbook authors.

Are they there to sign their books, to promote their books, to discuss their books? Then yes. If not, no.

I've edited a law book. But am I going to list every legal seminar I speak at as an event? Of course not.

>>19 stephmo:

You know, I find that a tricky one because it's sponsored by a magazine who also publishes books sometimes.

> 22

I don't think the sponsor should make a difference. If my library sponsors a craft program for kids or a home buying seminar for adults (both real programs) should those be listed as events? They're not book-related, but lord knows my library has a lot of books!

Yeah, but are the craft program and home buying seminar taught by published authors?

> 24

What difference does that make? If the program is not related to the books in any way, why should the fact that the presenter wrote a book make the event appropriate for posting here?

In any case, your question in #22 had to do with the sponsor of the event, not the presenters, and that is what I addressed in #23.

The bottom line is that I don't think an event should be listed unless the event itself has some relation to books.

My answer in #22 was related to stephmo's mention of it in #19, where she said that there would be lots of authors there. So I said it was a tricky one, because authors + publisher *might* equal an appropriate event for us to mention.

Can get we get back to whether the Bead Fest should stay? I'm still leaning no.

>26 lampbane: Bead Fest should stay. She's written a book on beading. Anyone that thinks she's doing a demo / class and won't be taking the opportunity to promote her book is greatly mistaken. She will likely be doing something even better than discussing her book - she'll be showing from her book.

The idea that everyone here that's against would prefer that a crafter or a chef would read from their book rather than demonstrate from their book is perhaps the saddest thing I've seen.

This just leaves the subject of signing books up in the air. Well, I don't know how many author events you've been to, but not every author event guarantees an autograph.

Finally, if you were a prospective LT Author and you found out you weren't "good enough" to be an event because you demo your book instead of reading from it, how long would it take you to consider LibraryThing to be made up entirely of tightasses?

ETA - This user went out of their way to only list the author at the event. They eschewed all other classes/demos given by non-authors. They were clearly steering the event towards the author-oriented portion.

ETA #2 - LTLocal is a partnership feature designed to elevate LT's presence in the book world (unless I misread the blog and the announcements). I think the last thing users really need to do is start parsing things into oblivion when they're "on the edge" - it's better to err on the side of "look at how much more we offer than any other site out there!"

I can live with that.

If the poster would just include something like "author X will be demonstrating techniques from her book, How to bead for fun and profit", I don't think there'd be an issue.

The problem is that a lot of authors of books in crafts, in the professions, etc. give classes and presentations that don't mention or discuss or relate to their books. I gave myself as an example above.

A bit more communication would resolve some of these discussions before they start.

Hi,

I came across this by accident and decided to respond. stephmo very eloquently defended the venue and reconstructed most of my thoughts on the matter, but I shall add a few more points.

lilithcat, I didn’t add that text, because I can’t guarantee that they are going to do that. I don’t see how that invalidates their events. I’ve been to panels at SF cons where the only promoting authors on the panels have done is in their introduction. The rest of the panel was spent talking about techniques or ideas. In some cases, the authors were interesting enough that I either bought their book(s) or ordered them for the store so others would have the opportunity to buy them.

I know that if I saw that Donna Dickt was holding a class in my area, I’d be very pleased, and eager to take it or even stop by the store to see if she had any other books for sale. It’s nice that I might have the opportunity to see it announced here, where I spend more of my time.

Lastly, it may be a BEAD-fest, but you’ll have a hard time convincing me that there will not be hundreds of books for sale there—instructional and informational. There will be opportunities to see and buy many books that may only be available online or at larger bead stores. It is an almost perfect venue for buying art and craft books.

What's everyone's thoughts on listing theatrical performances of literary works, a.k.a. as the ubiquitous "play"? I just happened to click on the LTLocal Stats page (BTW, "Aaarrrgh!" Is event saturation ever going to get up to 10%? It's daunting) and noticed a proliferation/glut of theatrical performances---and not entered as a multi-day event using the "Fair" category within creating a Venue even but each individual day of performance was listed as an event. That just seems like so much clutter to me and maybe even unnecessary---can you imagine what would happen if lots of Local areas started listing play performances simply because the play is a literary work/book? Theatrical performances is one of those, "Well it goes without saying the obvious" things to me. Thoughts?

Unless this is something super-spectacular - like the playwright actually being there - it's a theater listing.

Well, here are instances I'd like to know about:

There are theater events where the playwright will be there and do Q&A or workshop-type things.

Some super-spectacular workshop of a playwrights works that haven't been done in forever or were before "lost" to the world (look, if Daniel Day Lewis and Meryl Streep decide to showcase the recently discovered lost works of Samuel Beckett, that's probably worth a quick mention).

Okay, I've run out of ideas that aren't simply "plays."

I think I've entered one play that was the kick-off of a literary festival (where playwrights would be speaking at later events).

I've also entered a couple "group readings" of plays held a bookstores. Anyone is welcome to attend and join in. I figure it's a mix of open-mic and bookclub, but those are the ones I was unsure about. Thoughts? Should I refrain from entering these?

I have been avoiding listing *all* plays or theatrical events because it seems like such a gray area to me. Then one could move on to post movies based on books and so forth.

I think the option for whether or not to enter these should fall on the poster. That person knows the reason for the entry.

Unless LTL becomes very *cluttered* with plays and movies, etc., I tend to ignore what's already been posted and post what I personally feel is correct.

I get the notion of "Very Special" performances or even unique theatrical stagings which might be a one-time (or very short) event and I personally am fine with those. I make a pointed effort not to list book group discussions, storytimes, and most open mics but there have been a few exceptions, i.e., the author was at the book group or the open mic was part of National Poetry Month celebrations, and the like. I could foresee having to enter some theatrical performance special event some day---after all, I never thought I'd list a musical performance at a venue but then a few days ago I did one for a special concert by a cellist for an evening of music inspired by Shakespeare. But it would never cross my mind to say, list the daily performances of whatever play the Steppenwolf Theater is currently performing. I guess I consider theater events or theater-going to be in the realm of performance art appreciation/interests and not books/publishing/writing related per se in spite of the nature of the source material.

>>31 bookjones:

Well, eventually saturation used to be above 10%, and even reached 13% at one time. Obviously, venues are being entered faster than events so the number's sliding off...

I'm doing my part with conventions, but it's a lot of work. Back to the grind, I guess!

You think plays are dangerous territory? Wait until the people who catalog their CDs and DVDs here start adding gigs and cinema listings...

--> 37

I haven't seen any of those yet. Have you seen some? :(

> 38

Well, I just saw a CD signing listed. I deleted it.

And I know there was some discussion about leaving up the American Girl Place "birthday parties" as they are related to the American Girl books, but what do people think about a workshop there on making paper dolls? Isn't that stretching things a bit?

American Girls sells paper doll books - a paper doll book is the only American Girls thing in my catalog right now, in fact (with ISBN and everything!) - so I wouldn't *immediately* say no, although if it's just paper dolls in general with no specific connection to the books they sell, probably not.

Are American Girl birthday parties really strongly related to the books? Do most of the girls at those parties have any idea that the books exist and are the books given as presents or just the dolls and accessories?

If not isn't this equivalent to listing Thomas the Tank Engine events or those Elmo stage plays just because there are Thomas and Elmo children's books?

We've been around this already on *this thread*! :D See message #7.

While there may be girls into the dolls who have no idea about the books, this is *very unlikely* - the dolls, etc. are still only sold through the catalog and online, most of the products tie *very directly* to the books, and they send the catalog to people who are in the demographic to have already been reading the books. The entire product line was designed specifically to lure girls into reading the chapter books, so while they have gotten a bit unfocused lately, it's still fundamentally about the books in a way Elmo isn't.

More specifically, each book series has a book that is *about* the character's birthday (The book in each series titled "Happy Birthday, ______"), and they sell doll accessories to exactly correspond to *the party in the book*. So the characters' parties they give in the store are intended specifically as expanding and recreating a particular scene in a particular book.

>38 SqueakyChu:: No, I haven't seen anything like that. It just occurred to me a while ago that anyone who catalogued such things wouldn't have any real argument against extending the idea to Local.

Well I've seen on our Local Homepage some odd (or at least I perceive them as odd) events creeping up of late just because they are events at a library, i.e., a movie night, a gardening seminar, a birding discussion. While the listings may grate against my own preferences or sensibilities I haven't deleted anyone's handiwork.

Well one things for certain, it's all a matter of tastes and perception I am finding out---one man's children's story time hour as book "event" is another man's lead boots as it were. :-)

> 41

Are American Girl birthday parties really strongly related to the books?

Frankly, I have no idea, and left the discussion to those who were more familiar with the franchise than I.

--> 44

I think the problem is that if a venue, say a library, "claims" that venue, *every* public event they offer is going to find its way into LT Local. Do I like it? No. I'm not sure, however, that we can ask venues to take ownership of a venue on LT Local and then have us always screening (and possibly deleting) the events they list.

Thoughts?

>>41 jjwilson61:

Remember, Thomas and Elmo started out as TV properties, while American Girl started out as a book series, and still very much revolves around those books (again, see earlier on this thread).

>>36 lampbane:

Following up on my own comment, I've finished adding events from this weekend's New York Comic Con. To reassure everyone here - I've only added events about books or comics. There's a couple of screenings in there, but they're documentaries about comics.

When San Diego Comic-Con rolls around, I'd greatly appreciate help in getting all four days' events listed on LTL.

I'm curious what resources others are using. I've been mostly using the Book World section of The Washington Post.

>>46 SqueakyChu:

Oh, I hope brooching this topic on my part didn't lead you to think that I want to delete or police anyone's entries. That could lead to discouraging folks in what is supposed to be a relatively open-ended community feature. Since the thread already existed, I just wanted to suss out others thoughts and see if anyone perhaps shared my curmudgeonly feelings on some of this stuff. As I said, I have never deleted anyone's entries but my own---I've added additional information, edited, etc. but would never presume to get rid of anyone's efforts because after all, whether I think they "are" or "are not" LTLocal-appropriate is only my own opinion.

That being said, in regards to what you mentioned about venues taking ownership of their venues, well I fully admit that thwarting owners adding everything under the sun from their calendars is *precisely* why I don't contact the venues that I've created. Heh. Somewhat nefarious to be sure but it's just a choice I've made for myself. I mean, I love my favorited cultural venues as much as the next patron but in no way do I want to see their film screenings, political lectures, art exhibits and the like listed on my Local homepage unless it's got to do with literature. Since I also don't believe in policing venues re what they can and can't list, the best solution for me is to keep my mouth shut about creating the venue and go about my business of adding literary events. :-)

> 48

I try to visit the websites of my favorite venues every two or three weeks to see what's coming up. I'll also use a couple of local rags, like the Chicago Reader or Time Out: Chicago. The problem with those, and with newspapers, is that they don't usually list events more than a week or so in advance, whereas the venue sites generally go a month or two out.

--> 49

Oh, I hope brooching this topic on my part didn't lead you to think that I want to delete or police anyone's entries.

It didn't. It just made me think of the possibilities of inappropriate content being added to LTL.

thwarting owners adding everything under the sun from their calendars is *precisely* why I don't contact the venues that I've created

But this is a double-edged sword. In no way can we all do the work of all venues everywhere. The intent of LT Local, as I understood from Tim, was that the venues would eventually claim their place and do all the adding of material. I think that's the only way there could ever be any comprehensive coverage of events.

bookjones, don't you ever get tired of adding content? :)

>>51 SqueakyChu:

Oh, I think what Tim said from the get-go is the intent and what will likely happen as LTL becomes old hat. We'll just have to see how it all plays out. One way that someone could contribute would be to follow-up on contacting venues that others have set up as a LTL missoin of sorts kind of like the one night where I added RSS feed URLs, wi-fi info and the like to a bunch of chain stores others had already kindly created. It's the whole point of the Wikiverse after all. I just won't be one of those hypothetical people who contact the venues, LOL! I figure everything will sort itself out in the fallout. :)

I don't enter things every day---you have to let some days pass every week before new information is available in my experience. Nevertheless, I find it's not terribly difficult or time-consuming to add new events since most possible venue selections already exist for the Chicago Local homepage (we really do have a lot of info on our page! I'm convinced as an individual page we probably have at had at least a 20% event saturation if not more---it would be interesting to see Local stats). RSS feed subscriptions alert you to lots of random one-off events to add here and there.

You should keep in mind though that I am only concerned with, focused on, and only add content for my own Local page, my own community. I am only interested in the Chicago Local page being the most robust it can be. That focus benefits me because I find out about events that pique my interest (before LTL I simply checked for events on my own and that info stayed with me only) and benefits others who might be interested if it's brought to their attention too. It's a win-win. Just as Tim's vision is that venues take ownership of their venue entries so I believe that the other part of the equation is that Local area communities should take ownership of their Local pages and let the chips fall where they may in terms of success/interest/activity.

--> 52

I do agree with what you said...especially "I figure everything will sort itself out in the fallout."

I started doing events everywhere, but, like you, I ended up working on saturating my local area (the Washington, DC, metro area) with as many venues and events as I could. In the course of entering information, I've discovered some interesting venues that would be worthwhile checking out a bit closer. As for a win-win situation, that it certainly is.

I also think that entering this information is a soothing way to relax after work. It's mindless and fun. The fact that it's of use and interest to other people only makes it more worthwhile.

I've been taking care of the NYC area, and I pretty much figured I had it booked up through June, though I'm sure plenty of events have popped up since I last did a blitz.

Places where I find events:

NY1 Community Calendar
Craigslist
Time Out New York
New York Magazine
Village Voice

#31: I did.
I entered each day because this is not a "fair" (I know some theatral fairs, they are time limited and a lot of different performances are played during a few days) and there is no possibility to enter an event from a venue with a "from this date to this date". (sorry about my English)
And I only added theatral performances for authors who were in LT, I didn't add new authors.
I think that read a play is one thing and watch a play played on a stage is an entirely different experience, this is why I added those events.
I know that that was a lot of events added in the same time but this will only happens a few time in the year, not each week!
If somebody has a tip to add events from a date to another when the events are not fairs, it would be nice.

>>55 Louve_de_mer:

Uh, "fair/festivals" isn't limited to strictly fairs and festivals, it's for any multi-day event, they just couldn't fit "fair/festival/convention/art show/insert anything else book-related here" into the box.

If it's multi-day and there are individual events at whatever this thing is, it should be entered as a venue.

I'll do that next time, sorry for the congestion of LT because of all my additions.

You could always have the different venues you created merged, which will put everything into one entry.

It's okay, LTL is young and there are still things to be worked out or made clearer.

Re the bead festival: Interweave Press publishes high quality magazines and books on a variety of crafts. If the bead festival is allowed to stand, you can expect to see events centered on knitting, crochet, quilting, woodworking, etc.

I listed the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as a venue, with a link to their website, but have not listed individual events. I would find it difficult to exclude something like this.

I was disappointed to see 8 listings for bead classes and only 4 book related events. I also put in 10 miles from my home to cut out philly events but still got these bead classes in philly on my list. Why? I would like to see them deleted.

Hey, I just added a bunch of American Girl stuff again, let's see if anyone complains again!