Eleven Years On...

Cross posting from our own messages:

It's our eleventh anniversary on LibraryThing. Last year, I did a big tenth anniversary multi-part analysis. This year, I'll stick to a streamlined one year overview of where we stand.

The numbers:

Size: 8364 (net gain of 224)
Zeitgeist Rank: 469
Median: 40
Mean: 892
Top UIC: 910 (Michaelg16)
Bottom UIC: 489 (skullduggery)
Bottom UIC +: 413 (setnahkt)
% unique: 15.5 (1300 works)
10th %: 1
90th %: 1400 (ranked 836 Penelope Fitzgerald, The Blue Flower)
Bainton, Here I Stand: 2250 (ranked 624)
LT Users: 2,152,737
LT Books: 113,336,013
LT Works: 10,670,703
10,000 copies: 173
1,000 copies: 1033
100 copies: 3085
10 copies: 5598
1000th LT Book: Hobb, Assassin's Quest, 5516 Copies
% Overlap w/ Top UIC: 10.9
% Overlap w/ Bottom UIC: 4.9

Previous 90th % books:
Trout Fishing in America: rank 880, copies 1289
Cultural Literacy: 870/1319
Bully for Brontosaurus: 888/1267
The Early Church: 763/1669
Utilitarianism: 762/1675
Katz und Maus: 792/1554
How to Lie with Statistics: 767/1660
Our Game: 766/1661
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters: 746/1738
The Alhambra: 824/1447

There were no notable changes in the weighted rankings of Users in Common that I have been tracking. Bibliophiles is still number 1. 10 of 16 have added books in the last year.

One new observation: I checked the "recent" Users in Common to see how long they stay in place. The oldest recent User in Common (caledonbooks) started on LT on Jan 17, 2015. The newest one (maryhollis) started Feb 20, 2017. None of the recent Users in Common have made there way onto the list of weighted Users in Common.

That's it for this year.

Yesterday was our twelfth anniversary on LibraryThing. Once again, I will do the traditional "running of the stats." To see evolution of the stats over time (with more information than you could possibly want about it all) check out the topic "Ten Years On."

The usual numbers:

Library size: 8463 (net gain of 99)
Zeitgeist rank: 512
Median: 41
Mean: 849
Top UIC: Michaelg16 918
Bottom UIC: JohnCernes 505
Bottom UIC (more): Leischen 419
% unique: 15.5
10th%: 1
90th%: Melville, Billy Budd rank 846, copies 1435
Rank and Copies of Here I Stand: 613/2439

LT Users: 2,282,569
LT Books: 124,254,102
LT Works: 11,949,605
1000th LT Book: Cassandra Claire, Clockwork Angel 5809 copies

10,000 copies: rank 181
1,000 copies: rank 1080
100 copies: rank 3150
10 copies: rank 5724
% Overlap with Top UIC: 10.8
% Overlap with Bottom UIC (more): 4.9

Previous Years' 90th% Books, rank/copies
Trout Fishing in America: 894/1339
Cultural Literacy: 872/1386
Bully for Brontosaurus: 902/1319
The Early Church: 753/1810
Utilitarianism: 754/1809
Katz und Maus: 798/1609
How to Lie With Statistics: 764/1778
Our Game: 766/1777
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters: 732/1883
The Alhambra: 816/1555
The Blue Flower: 840/1466

Recent User in Common (top): MikeLynn1789, joined 3/1/2018
Recent User in Common (last): BigTony, joined 3/31/2016

AND NOW FOR THE BIG NEWS!

After eleven years of bibliophiles as the top weighted user in common, there is a new #1, MikeLynn1789, who is also the most recent user in common to have joined LibraryThing. We appear at #12 on his list of weighted users in common.

Of the seventeen other weighted users in common I followed last year, one has dropped from the list of the top 100: MMcM. Eleven of the seventeen have added books in the last year. I consider the others to be "inactive."

Here is where the remaining sixteen rank on our list of weighted users in common. (Numbers in parentheses are where we rank on their lists, which I checked for a few libraries.)

bibliophiles 2 (71)
drsabs 4
bwogilvie 5 (22)
wrbucla 7
Adam_Mosley 9 (21)
pobanion 12
ellenandjim 16
annamorphic 15
jgarrig 21
igallupd 27
Illiniguy71 41 (21)
alex19 37
pomonomo2003 52
debweiss 55
markell 83
meburste 78

And just because I was curious, I checked where MikeLynn1789 ranked on bibliophiles' list of weighted users in common and vice versa. MikeLynn1789 is #62 on bibliophiles, bibliophiles is #15 on MikeLynn1789.

See you again for lucky anniversary 13 next year.

It’s lucky thirteen time! Our thirteenth anniversary on LibraryThing.

As per tradition, I’ll summarize the various numbers I have been tracking over the past thirteen years. I've already posted the info on our own page. I think this will have to be divided into two posts.

First, the main Stats/Memes

Library Size 8792 (net gain of 329)
Zeitgeist Rank 534
Median 40
Mean 865
Top User In Common (raw) with copies in common Michaelg16 929
Bottom UIC (raw) with copies in common Patentnonsense 520
Bottom UIC more (raw) with copies in common erathostenes 428
% Overlap with Top User in Common 10.6
% Overlap with Bottom User in Common 4.9
% Unique 15.6
10th percentile copies 1
90th percentile copies (title, rank, copies) Genet, Our Lady of the Flowers, 879, 1468
Rank and copies of Here I Stand 605/2609

LT Users 2395318
LT Books 133539929
LT Works 12711576
1000th ranked LT Work (title, copies) Scalzi, Old Man’s War 6119 (would rank 329 in our library)

Works with 10,000 copies in our library 187
Works with 1,000 copies in our library 1120
Works with 100 copies in our library 3255 (7 titles)
Works with 10 copies in our library 5730 (97 titles)
Threshold 10,000 copy work Hamilton, Mythology
Threshold 1,000 copy work Weiss, Marat/Sade
Threshold 100 copy work T.G. Ash, Uses of Adversity
Threshold 10 copy work Wunder, Er ist die Sonn' sie ist der Mond

Previous Years’ 90th percentile work from oldest to most recent (rank/copies)
Trout Fishing in America 906/1403
Cultural Literacy 901/1420
Bully for Brontosaurus 920/1370
The Early Church 770/1874
Utilitarianism 762/1897
Katz und Maus 808/1668
How to Lie with Statistics 759/1902
Carré, Our Game 769/1880
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters 733/1975
The Alhambra 810/1664
The Blue Flower 845/1546
Billy Budd 844/1546

Recent User in Common, top (joined) Polleian, Jan 8, 2019
Recent User in Common, bottom (joined) jeremyrichardpowell, Feb 3, 2017

Selected Weighted User in Common rank (parenthetical where we rank in their list)
Bibliophiles 2 (75)
Drsabs 4
Bwogilvie 5
*Wrbucla 7
Adam_Mosely 10
*Pobanion 14
Anamorphic 15
Ellenandjim 17
*Jgarrig 22 (25)
*Igallupd 27
*Alex19 39
Illiniguy71 45 (23)
Pomonomo2003 49
Debweiss 54
Meburste 87
Markell 91
MMcM 96

(note, MMcM returns to the list after a year’s absence)

Of these 17 libraries, 11 remain active and have added books this year. One other added books in 2018. The others are dormant (noted by a *).

Lucky thirteen time continued…

And now for a couple of more recent or brand new sets of numbers.

What kinds of books are the mean and median books in our library?
We do not have any work with exactly 865 copies. The work immediately above it is Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail. The work immediately below it is Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. It would rank 1223rd or 86th percentile.

We have 32 books with 40 copies. Characteristic would be Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees and Alice Clark, The Working Lives of Women in the Seventeenth Century. The latter is worth noting because this year is the centennial of its first publication.

I also looked more closely into overlaps in books among the weighted users in common.

Our top weighted user in common remains MikeLynn1789. A few years ago, I did a comparison between our library and the top weighted user in common, bibliophiles. I thought I’d do the same with MikeLynn1789 now. The left side of the slash is our library, the right side is MikeLynn1789.

Library Size 8792/1618
Zeitgeist Rank 534/not in top 5000
Median 40/54
Mean 865/416
Top UIC Michaelg16 929/Michaelg16 410
Bottom UIC more erathostenes 428/GuidoBonino 99
% Overlap with Top User in Common 10.6/25.3
% Overlap with Bottom User in Common 4.9/6.1
% Unique 15.6/3.8
10th percentile 1/4
90th percentile (copies) Genet,Our Lady of the Flowers,1468/Boswell, Same Sex Marriage in Pre-Modern Europe, 779

Of the top 20 works in his library, we have 15 in our library. Conversely, of the top 20 works in our library, he has just one, The Odyssey. There are several books at the median of his library. One of them, Lucien Febvre, Life in Renaissance France, is also in our library. He does not have a book at the exact mean of his collection. If he did, it would rank 246th, between Kittelson, Luther the Reformer and Novick, That Noble Dream.

We have the most popular work in all of LibraryThing, Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (with 98,952 members. I wonder if it will make it to 100,000 copies by next year?) Of the 100 weighted users in common, 21 also have copies of that book.

The work that appears in the most weighted users in common libraries is The Aeneid, in 73 of 100 libraries. The Odyssey is in 72 of the 100. I don’t know how one would calculate the book with the fewest copies in LibraryThing in the highest percentage of weighted users in common libraries. Of the 352 of our books listed as shared by just one other library in Vous et nul autre, 12 are found in 6 different libraries among our top 100 weighted users in common. RonKaplanNJ has four books that are only in his library and ours. One of our books listed as shared by just two other libraries is shared by two libraries among our top 100 weighted users in common. There are two books that we share with the top weighted user in common MikeLynn1789, Kristen Neuschel, Word of Honor, which we share with three other libraries and Linda Merians, The Secret Malady, which we share with four other libraries.

Six of our top 100 weighted users in common have a book written by one of us, asukamaxwell has Lisa’s Anatomy Murders, Michaelg16, Librum, and meburste have Lisa’s The Most Beautiful Man in Existence, and booksbobbi and debweiss have our jointly authored Short History of Europe 1600-1815.

The most popular work in LibraryThing that is not in our library or in any of the other 100 weighted user in common libraries is Cassandra Clare, City of Bones, the 275th most popular book, with 13,517 copies.

And to conclude, a follow up observation on a mild complaint I made at my tenth anniversary survey. The Zeitgeist rankings of the most popular books and the popularity number that appears on each works page now appear to be aligned in LibraryThing. No more Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone being #1 in the Zeitgeist rankings but a popularity of 2. The year-by-year popularity rankings extend to the top 100,000 works. That covers everything down to about 176 copies. With this information, you can calculate how many books there are for each number of copies (To find out how many books there are with 41 owners simply subtract the popularity of 41 copies from 42 copies and you get 8,749) From this, I determine that there are 6,986,181 ultb in LibraryThing (total number of works – popularity of books with 1 copy). No wonder 1 is the most common modal average for libraries. Yay for improvements.

Cross-posting from our profile page:

It’s time for our annual overview of the long-running statistics we have been collecting on LibraryThing. This is our fourteenth anniversary. For this year, I’ll just do the basic overview for the year in a single post. I’ll also post it to the thread “Eleven Years On…” in the Group “Too Obscure.” Next year is another round number anniversary, so I’ll probably do the basic overview and a more systematic year by year comparison. See you then!

First, the main Stats/Memes

Library Size 9222 (net gain of 430)
Zeitgeist Rank 551
Median 43
Mean 887
Top User In Common (raw) with copies in common Michaelg16 985
Bottom UIC (raw) with copies in common bookmountain 559
Bottom UIC more (raw) with copies in common malcolmoxlely 455
% Overlap with Top User in Common 10.7
% Overlap with Bottom User in Common 4.9
% Unique 16.2
10th percentile copies 1
90th percentile copies (title, rank, copies) Montaillou 922/1510
Rank and copies of Here I Stand 614/2822

LT Users 2503305
LT Books 143518492
LT Works 13486524
1000th ranked LT Work (title, copies) Rick Riordan, The Red Pyramid 6449 (would rank 347 in our library)

Works with 100,000 copies in our library 2
Works with 10,000 copies in our library 214 (net gain 27)
Works with 1,000 copies in our library 1194 (net gain 74)
Works with 100 copies in our library 3469 (11 titles) (net gain 214)
Works with 10 copies in our library 6315 (95 titles) (net gain 585)
(Last year I wondered if Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone would crack 100,000 copies this year; and it has. We own two copies of the book, which is why there is a 2 instead of a 1. The second most popular book in LibraryThing - also a Harry Potter book - is still quite a way from 100,000 copies, so I don’t expect this to change much in the next couple of years.)

Threshold 10,000 copy work E.B. White, Stuart Little
Threshold 1,000 copy work Peter Weiss, Marat/Sade
Threshold 100 copy work Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society
Threshold 10 copy work Blair Worden, The Rump Parliament

Representative Mean Work: Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World (rank 1290)
Representative Median Works: Sabean, Power in the Blood, Evans, Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, Dunn, Everything Else in the World

Previous Years’ 90th percentile work from oldest to most recent (rank/copies)
Trout Fishing in America 947/1467
Cultural Literacy 939/1482
Bully for Brontosaurus 964/1422
The Early Church 788/2002
Utilitarianism 792/1989
Katz und Maus 843/1744
How to Lie with Statistics 782/2015
Carré, Our Game 802/1965
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters 776/2033
The Alhambra 833/1798
The Blue Flower 884/1612
Billy Budd 885/1604
Our Lady of the Flowers 930/1497

Recent User in Common, top (joined) karigalle March 23, 2020
Recent User in Common, bottom (joined) KMcPhail Jan 7, 2018

Selected Weighted User in Common rank (parenthetical where we rank in their list)

Bibliophiles 2 (83)
Drsabs 4
Bwogilvie 6
*Wrbucla 8
Adam_Mosely 12
*Pobanion 17
Ellenandjim 18
*Jgarrig 24 (29)
Anamorphic 26
*Igallupd 28
*Alex19 52
Illiniguy71 56 (25)
Pomonomo2003 59
Debweiss 60
MMcM 100

I sadly note that two stalwarts of the list of weighted users in common for the previous thirteen years have now dropped off it: meburste and Markell. Perhaps they will make a reappearance in future years. Interestingly, they seem to have dropped faster than MMcM, who disappeared from the list two years ago and then came back. I’m not sure what we or they have added or removed that would account for that.

Five of these 15 libraries have not added any books in at least a year. They are marked dormant (noted by a *).

MikeLynn1789, who entered our list two years ago as the top weighted user in common remains at the top this year. He is still listed near the bottom of “recent” users in common. I expect he will probably drop out of that list by next year’s overview.

Our most recent user in common, karigalle, also appears in the weighted user in common list at about 58th position (most of the time, “recent” users in common don’t crack the “weighted” user in common list).

That’s it for 2020. See you again in 2021.

A mildly interesting coincidence I just noticed...

I chose Roland Bainton's Here I Stand as a marker for the growth of LibraryThing and our own library because it was the first "popular" book from our library that we entered. So every year, I have noted how many copies of the book are in LibraryThing and where the book ranks in our library.

It turns out that March 30, the date of our joining LibraryThing, is also Roland Bainton's birthday. Happy 126th Birthday, Roland!

Fifteen years on LibraryThing! Once again it’s time for our annual overview of the long-running statistics we have been collecting. I’ll do the slightly more expanded version of the overview this year, and, as is usual, will post it to the Group “Too Obscure” as well as here. I also hope to post a bit more on “what it all means” this time. If you have a lot of time to spare and want to see the origins of all this, you can start from the beginning with https://www.librarything.com/topic/220596#n5530961 and continue with https://www.librarything.com/topic/254092#n7110433

First, the main Stats/Memes

Library Size 9457 (net gain of 235)
Zeitgeist Rank 602
Median 43
Mean 929
Top User In Common (raw) with copies in common Michaelg16 992
Bottom UIC (raw) with copies in common ericandsue 576
Bottom UIC more (raw) with copies in common antiquary 469
% Overlap with Top User in Common 10.5
% Overlap with Bottom User in Common 5
% Unique 16.7
10th percentile copies 1
90th percentile copies (title, rank, copies) Ever Since Darwin 946/1578 (It’s the second time we’ve had a book by Stephen Jay Gould as our 90th percentile copy.)
Rank and copies of Here I Stand 612/3021

LT Users 2618863
LT Books 156605358
LT Works 25782816
By my reckoning that means that the average library has 59.8 books and the average work has 6 copies.
1000th ranked LT Work (title, copies) Lemony Snicket, The End 6854 (would rank 356 in our library)

Works with 100,000 copies in our library 2
Works with 10,000 copies in our library 229 (net gain 15)
Works with 1,000 copies in our library 1252 (net gain 58)
Works with 100 copies in our library 3572 (12 titles) (net gain 103)
Works with 10 copies in our library 6442 (102 titles) (net gain 127)

Threshold 10,000 copy work Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Threshold 1,000 copy work Quentin Bell, Virginia Woolf: a Biography
Threshold 100 copy work Cezanne: The Late Work
Threshold 10 copy work Karin Wigen, Cartographic Japan

Representative Mean Work: Henry Adams, Mt. St. Michel and Chartres (rank 1310)
Representative Median Works: Newton’s Principia, John Thorn, Century of Baseball Lore, Lloyd Moote, Louis XIII: The Just

Previous Years’ 90th percentile work from oldest to most recent (rank/copies)
Trout Fishing in America 968/1537
Cultural Literacy 963/1554
Bully for Brontosaurus 990/1489
The Early Church 792/2139
Utilitarianism 790/2140
Katz und Maus 873/1805
How to Lie with Statistics 771/2197
Carré, Our Game 808/2091
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters 797/2115
The Alhambra 830/1969
The Blue Flower 894/1702
Billy Budd 895/1700
Our Lady of the Flowers 942/1581
Montaillou 940/1585

Recent User in Common, top (joined) Cliffisland March 20, 2021
Recent User in Common, bottom (joined) Floyd3345 June 16, 2019

Selected Weighted User in Common rank (parenthetical where we rank in their list along with month of most recent book added to their library)

Bibliophiles 2 (95) 3/2021
Drsabs 4 2/2021
Bwogilvie 6 3/2021
*Wrbucla 8 3/2010
Adam_Mosely 12 12/2020
*Pobanion 17 3/2016
Ellenandjim 18 3/2021
Anamorphic 24 2/2021
*Jgarrig 25 (34) 12/2015
*Igallupd 29 10/2013
Illiniguy71 47 (27) 11/2020
*Alex19 55 12/2012
*Debweiss 59 8/2018
Pomonomo2003 61 12/2020

There has been some shifting around of rankings in the past year (e.g. annamorphic and jgarrig have switched spots). Not quite sure why that happens. Also, another stalwart has fallen out of the rankings, MMcM.

In previous years, I’ve noted users in common on this list that are no longer active with a *. This year, I’ve decided to note the most recent month/year that a book has been entered. In general, I consider users who have entered at least one book in the past year as active, longer than that as inactive. Debweiss appears to have made the transition from active to inactive. Otherwise, all of the active users on that list have remained active and all the inactive have stayed inactive.

MikeLynn1789, who entered our list three years ago as the top weighted user in common remains at the top this year. He also remains active. The most recent user in common in Cliffisland, who joined 3/20/2021, the last listed recent user in common is Floyd3345, who joined 6/15/2019. The only recent users in common list that are also on our weighted users in common list are karlgalle, who was the most recent of all last year and Baseball_Institute.

In our thirteenth anniversary overview I did some comparisons of most popular books in the libraries of users in common. I didn’t notice any dramatic changes in the numbers and didn’t feel up to a more systematic revisiting, so I’ll quickly revisit a few topics: Of our top weighted users in common, 22 have Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The most popular books that appear in our library and the greatest number of users in commons libraries are the Odyssey (24th most popular overall) and the Aeneid (173rd most popular overall), in 73 and 72 of our top 100 libraries respectively. Just three of our own books are now in the libraries of users in common (down from six three years ago, because three libraries dropped out of our top users in common). Cassandra Clare, City of Bones, has moved up a few spots to 245 on the total members, but it also now appears in one library among our top users in common, ejmw. I’m not sure any more which book is the most popular that can’t be found in any of the top users in common.

Going back to topics we discussed on our tenth anniversary or earlier:
We have all ten of the most popular books in LibraryThing, but just fourteen of the top twenty.
My extremes of obscurity and non-obscurity among the initial group of libraries that I started following were lycanthropist and sylphette. Where do they stand today? Library size/mean/median/most recent entry
Lycanthropist 7601/205/13/3-26-2021
Sylphette 1620/3519/449/6-1-2015

I’ll post our running fifteen year totals in a separate post.

Running Fifteen Year Totals

I think I last presented running totals from the first year five years ago. This post will, I hope, catch things up in one place.

Size 5255/5447/6714/6785/6882/6976/7081/7242/7358/8136/8364/8463/8792/9222/9457
Zeitgeist Rank 53/ukn/103/176/228/290/346/424/451/423/469/512/534/551/602
Mean 144/310/419/543/643/718/794/867/899/862/892/849/865/887/929
Median 5/12/21/28/34/40/45/49/52/40/40/41/40/43/43
Top UIC 390/413/563/672/752/823/846/870/877/895/910/918/929/985/992
Bottom UIC 78/197/318/346/374/393/414/452/458/473/489/505/520/559/576
Bottom UIC (more) ukn/157/255/280/303/335/356/379/391/401/413/419/428/455/469
% Unique 22/19/14/12/11.2/10.2/9.8/9.4/9.4/15/15.5/15.5/15.8/16.2/16.7
90th % 333/494/697/881/1051/1173/1312/1449/1507/1360/
% Overlap TUIC 7.4/7.6/8.4/10/10.9/11.8/12/12/12/11/10.8/10.8/10.6/10.7/10.5
% Overlap BUIC 1.4/2.8/3.8/4.1/4.4/4.8/5/5.2/5.3/4.9/4.9/4.9/4.9/4.9/5

Here I Stand #s 293/565/864/1051/1283/1456/1652/1816/1941/2053/2250/2439/2609/2822/3021

Number of books in my collection that reach certain thresholds (starting 2013)

10000 137/151/151/159/173/181/187/214/229
1000 831/895/945/983/1033/1080/1120/1194/1252
100 2659/2832/2922/3008/3085/3150/3253/3469/3572
10 5075/5284/5421/5566/5598/5724/5974/6215/6442

Overall Member Stats

Members 1086837/1310954/1513521/1656349/1799027/1928510/2043415/2152737/2282569/2395318/2503305/2618863

Books 50012841/61097862/71426286/79895042/89089829/96237372/104545987/113336013/10670703/124254102/133539929/143518492/156605358

Works 5240699/5990111/6765349/7457254/8152866/8778235/9738061/11949605/12711576/13486524/25782816

Rank and Copies of All 90th Percentile Books (From earliest to latest) (Note: this is presented in different order from my tenth anniversary overview, which gave copies/rank rather than rank/copies)

Trout Fishing in America (2007)
526/333
ukn
700/648
737/772
750/902
778/985
802/1049
821/1159
832/1215
852/1268
880/1289
894/1339
906/1403
947/1467
968/1573

Cultural Literacy (2008)
544/565
681/678
716/806
737/926
755/1020
790/1086
830/1143
840/1189
857/1253
870/1319
872/1386
901/1420
939/1482
963/1554

Bully for Brontosaurus (2009)
671/697
696/848
729/946
746/1042
791/1085
831/1139
854/1172
869/1217
888/1267
902/1319
920/1370
964/1422
990/1489

The Early Church (2010)
678/881
694/1036
703/1174
712/1299
746/1396
748/1471
763/1555
763/1669
753/1810
770/1874
988/2002
792/2139

Utilitarianism (2011)
688/1051
696/1181
714/1295
726/1437
737/1505
753/1579
762/1675
754/1809
762/1897
792/1989
790/2140

Katz und Maus (2012)
696/1173
732/1254
757/1357
764/1426
776/1480
792/1554
798/1609
808/1668
843/1744
873/1805

How to Lie with Statistics (2013)
708/1312
734/1407
751/1468
760/1561
767/1660
764/1778
759/1902
782/2015
771/2197

le Carré, Our Game (2014)
724/1449
739/1503
752/1581
766/1661
766/1777
769/1880
802/1965
808/2091

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (2015)
736/1507
745/1601
746/1738
732/1883
733/1975
776/2033
797/2115

The Alhambra (2016)
814/1360
824/1447
816/1555
810/1664
833/1798
830/1969

The Blue Flower (2017)
836/1400
840/1466
845/1546
884/1612
894/1702

Billy Budd (2018)
846/1453
844/1546
885/1604
895/1700

Our Lady of the Flowers (2019)
879/1468
930/1497
942/1581

Montaillou (2020)
922/1510
940/1585

Ever Since Darwin (2021)
946/1578

I'm going to crank this up again for my annual update on the shape of our library in terms of obscurity. I'll post the actual data in the following post.

LibraryThing has been undergoing some changes which may make keeping up with this annual ritual more complicated. I used to post the results first to the message board at our own library page and then copied it to this Group. But just in the last day or two LibraryThing switched to entirely private messaging on one's own library page. So, for now, this will be the sole repository of the public side of my small obsession. Because it has been quite a few years since anyone other than me has posted to this Group, I'm not expecting this to be a problem.

Sixteenth Anniversary Stats:

Library Size 9567 (net gain of 110)
Zeitgeist Rank 658
Median 44
Mean 978
Top User In Common (raw) with copies in common Michaelg16 999 (almost there at 1000!)
Bottom UIC (raw) with copies in common AmanteLibros 545
Bottom UIC more (raw) with copies in common rdurie 453 (not sure why this last two have gone down)
% Overlap with Top User in Common 10.4
% Overlap with Bottom User in Common 4.7
% Unique 16.8
10th percentile copies 1
90th percentile copies (title, rank, copies) Tintin, Red Rackham's Treasure 957/1663
Rank and copies of Here I Stand 618/3195

LT Users 2730030
LT Books 168348057
LT Works 27456841
By my reckoning that means that the average library now has 61.7 books and the average work has 6.1 copies.
1000th ranked LT Work: Unless I've missed something, Zeitgeist now only lists the top 200 ranked works, so this will have to be abandoned.

Works with 100,000 copies in our library 2
Works with 10,000 copies in our library 242 (net gain 13)
Works with 1,000 copies in our library 1306 (net gain 54)
Works with 100 copies in our library 3679 (22 titles) (net gain 107)
Works with 10 copies in our library 6554 (net gain 112)

Threshold 10,000 copy work Pratchett, Hogfather
Threshold 1,000 copy work Huizinga, Homo Ludens
Threshold 100 copy work De Certeau, Mystic Fable
Threshold 10 copy work Carsten, Princes and Parliaments in Germany

Representative Mean Work: still Henry Adams, Mt. St. Michel and Chartres (rank 1327)
Representative Median Work: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cezanne and Beyond

Previous Years’ 90th percentile work from oldest to most recent (rank/copies)
Trout Fishing in America 993/1607
Cultural Literacy 997/1599
Bully for Brontosaurus 1028/1532
The Early Church 793/2274
Utilitarianism 792/2280
Katz und Maus 889/1886
How to Lie with Statistics 780/2353
Carré, Our Game 819/2191
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters 813/2216
The Alhambra 838/2108
The Blue Flower 912/1783
Billy Budd 915/1776
Our Lady of the Flowers 961/1651
Montaillou 966/1645
Ever Since Darwin 971/1634

Recent User in Common, top (joined) JWagensfeld98 December 18, 2021
Recent User in Common, bottom (joined) PKStudyCenter November 5, 2019

Selected Weighted User in Common rank (parenthetical where we rank in their list. y=added book in previous year.)

Bibliophiles 2 (95) y
Drsabs 4 y
Bwogilvie 8 y
Wrbucla 10
Adam_Mosely 13 y
Pobanion 18
Ellenandjim 9 y
Anamorphic 26 y
Jgarrig 27 (36)
Igallupd 29
Illiniguy71 49 (28) y
Alex19 54
Debweiss 59
Pomonomo2003 63 y

MikeLynn1789, who entered our list three years ago as the top weighted user in common remains at the top this year. He also remains active. Seventeen libraries have been added since CliffsIsland was the most recent user in common last year.

My extremes of obscurity and non-obscurity among the initial group of libraries that I started following were lycanthropist and sylphette. Where do they stand today? Library size/mean/median
Lycanthropist 9093/220/14
Sylphette 1620/3692/480

Lycanthropist is still active. Sylphette stopped adding books years ago.

That's it for now. I hope to be back again next year for the seventeenth anniversary.

Our Seventeenth Anniversary.

As noted before, the presentation of statistics on LibraryThing has undergone some changes in the last year or two, making some of my old categories less useful. The biggest loss of information for me is the absence of a number of copies for the “raw” similar libraries list and of the ratio of number of copies to library size for the “weighted” list. It’s possible to click through and get a figure, but my memory is that that number was always slightly different from the one of the similar libraries list, so I’ve lost the continuity. I’ll just abandon that line of stats for now. I’m hoping I can get through the next three years to a big twentieth anniversary statistical blowout. I doubt I’ll keep going after that.

With that said, here’s this year’s stats:

Library Size 9680 (net gain of 113)
Zeitgeist Rank 726
Median 44
Mean 1030
Top User In Common (raw) Michaelg16 (I’d bet we’re over 1000 copies in common now)
Bottom UIC (raw) Themis-Athena
Bottom UIC more (raw) clio12
% Overlap with Top User in Common unknown
% Overlap with Bottom User in Common unknown
% Unique 17.2
10th percentile copies 1
90th percentile copies (title, rank, copies) Sebastian Junger, War 968/1752
Rank and copies of Here I Stand 619/3437

LT Users 2863013
LT Books 185540163
LT Works 29482265
1000th ranked LT Work abandoned

Works with 100,000 copies in our library 3
Works with 10,000 copies in our library 266 (net gain 24)
Works with 1,000 copies in our library 1352 (net gain 42)
Works with 100 copies in our library 3765 (12 titles) (net gain 86)
Works with 10 copies in our library 6632 (96 titles) (net gain 78)

Threshold 10,000 copy work Chabon, Yiddish Policeman’s Union
Threshold 1,000 copy work Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus
Threshold 100 copy work Olympic Mountains Trail Guide
Threshold 10 copy work Ellen Mutari, Just One More Hand

Representative Mean Work: Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (rank 1322)
Representative Median Works: Robert DuPlessis, Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe, Daniel Roche (RIP), The People of Paris

Previous Years’ 90th percentile work from oldest to most recent (rank/copies)
Trout Fishing in America 997/1690
Cultural Literacy 1004/1671
Bully for Brontosaurus 1040/1583
The Early Church 797/2388
Utilitarianism 790/2458
Katz und Maus 905/1958
How to Lie with Statistics 771/2533
Carré, Our Game 816/2322
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters 808/2351
The Alhambra 831/2173
The Blue Flower 934/1862
Billy Budd 916/1887
Our Lady of the Flowers deaccessioned
Montaillou. 991/1709
Ever Since Darwin 988/1719
Tintin, Red Rackham’s Treasure 950/1815

Recent User in Common, top (joined) Sterling4598 Feb 14, 2023
Recent User in Common, bottom (joined) CliffIslandLibrary June 6, 2020

Selected Weighted User in Common rank (parenthetical where we rank in their list)

Bibliophiles 2 (97)
Drsabs 3
Bwogilvie 8
*Wrbucla 9
Adam_Mosely 11
*Pobanion 16
Ellenandjim 18
*Jgarrig 25 (38)
Anamorphic 26
*Igallupd 28
Illiniguy71. 44 (28)
Alex19 58
Debweiss. 60
Pomonomo2003. 64
MMcM 96

And once again MMcM is back after a year outside the top 100. Otherwise there are only minor shifts in position. MikeLynn1789 remains our top weighted user in common.

And last, but not least, I like to keep track of my “most obscure” and “least obscure” libraries to see how they have changed. This year, it’s:
Lycanthropist: 9049/234/15
Sylphette: 1694/3909/545
It looks as if sylphette has added some books last year after being inactive for around a decade.

See you next year for our eighteenth, I hope!

Our Eighteenth Anniversary Here.

If you have been to this topic before, you know the drill. Here are the numbers:

Library Size 9816 (net gain of 135)
Zeitgeist Rank 791
Median 46
Mean 1091
Top User In Common (raw) Michaelg16 (1000)
Bottom UIC (raw) bookmountain (647)
Bottom UIC more (raw) ljhliesl (461)
% Overlap with Top User in Common
% Overlap with Bottom User in Common
% Unique 17.5
10th percentile copies 1
90th percentile copies (title, rank, copies) Rick Atkinson, Day of Battle 982/1870
Rank and copies of Here I Stand 625/3670

LT Users 2991789
LT Books 203220952
LT Works 31381628
1000th ranked LT Work abandoned

Works with 100,000 copies in our library 7
Works with 10,000 copies in our library 285 (net gain 19)
Works with 1,000 copies in our library 1422 (net gain 70)
Works with 100 copies in our library 3878 (11 titles) (net gain 113)
Works with 10 copies in our library 6749 (111 titles) (net gain 117)

Threshold 10,000 copy work Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
Threshold 1,000 copy work Rika Lesser,, Hansel and Gretel
Threshold 100 copy work Michael Baxandall, Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany
Threshold 10 copy work Thomas A. Brady, Jr., Turning Swiss

Representative Mean Work: Sir Walter Scott, Kenilworth (rank 1346)
Representative Median Works: Robert DuPlessis, Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe (still!), V.G. Kiernan, The Duel in European History (24 works at median)

Previous Years’ 90th percentile work from oldest to most recent (rank/copies)
Trout Fishing in America 1014/1767
Cultural Literacy 1034/1738
Bully for Brontosaurus 1067/1649
The Early Church 802/2545
Utilitarianism 795/2591
Katz und Maus 924/2037
How to Lie with Statistics 762/2737
Carré, Our Game 823/2464
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters 817/2486
The Alhambra 827/2457
The Blue Flower 949/1960
Billy Budd 937/1991
Our Lady of the Flowers deaccessioned
Montaillou. 998/1806
Ever Since Darwin 1005/1787
Tintin, Red Rackham’s Treasure 945/1970
Junger, War. 968/1866

Recent User in Common, top (joined) Brazgo67 January 23, 2024
Recent User in Common, bottom (joined) ElsinoreLibrary May 19, 2021

Site vs Member

Our # Top 100 72
Our % Top 100/LT %. 0.7%/2.5%
Our # Blockbusters (top 1000). 280
Our % Blockbusters/LT %. 2.9%/6.5%
Our # Popular (top 25,000) 1181
Our % Popular/LT %. 12%/24.5%
Our # High Midlist (top 250,000) 2236
Our % High Midlist/LT %. 22.8%/30.9%
Our # Low Midlist (top 1 million) 2032
Our % Low Midlist/Lt %. 20.7%/18.4%
Our # Obscure (top 2.5 million) 1298
Our % Obscure/LT %. 13.2%/9.1%
Our # Esoteric (the rest). 2717
Our % Esoteric/LT %. 27.7%/8.1%
Threshold Top 100 Title (with # of copies in LT). Romeo and Juliet (28389)
Threshold Blockbuster Title. Terry Pratchett, The Truth (8455)
Threshold Popular Title C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination. (861)
Threshold High Midlist Title Carlos Eire, War Against the Idols. (109)
Threshold Low Midlist Title Isabel Hull, Sexuality, State and Civil Society in Germany (23)
Threshold Obscure Title. Peter Taylor, Indentured to Liberty (7)

Selected Weighted User in Common rank (parenthetical where we rank in their list)

Bibliophiles 2 (100)
Drsabs 4
Bwogilvie 9
*Wrbucla 10
Adam_Mosely 18
*Pobanion 19
Ellenandjim 20
*Jgarrig 27 (41)
Anamorphic 28
*Igallupd 29
Illiniguy71. 49 (29)
Debweiss. 60
Alex19 64
Pomonomo2003. 68

And once again MMcM has dropped out of the top 100. Otherwise there are only minor shifts in position. MikeLynn1789 remains our top weighted user in common and we are at 18 on his list.

The change from last year’s most and least obscure follows are:
Lycanthropist: 9063/249/17
Sylphette: 1726/4143/585

Random notes: I added the information from “Site vs. Member” which I referenced last year in a separate topic but did not integrate into these numbers at the time. As of right now, the “Top 100” books range from 28,389 to 133,087 copies; “Blockbuster” ranges from 8,455 to 28,388 copies; “Popular“ ranges from 861 to 8,454 copies; “High Midlist” ranges from 109 to 860 copies; “Low Midlist” ranges from 23 to 108 copies; “Obscure” ranges from 7 to 22 copies; and “Esoteric” ranges from 1 to 6 copies.

Some interesting thresholds were crossed. People have added more than 200 million books into LibraryThing, consisting of more than 30 million individual titles. Next year, it is almost certain that there will be more than 3 million registered users. It is also noteworthy that now all but one of the Harry Potter books has crossed the 100,000 copies threshold.

See you again next year!