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Hi, I'm Ann Pool. Welcome to Creating a Book Blurb. This is the second in my series of
videos that will show you how to use LibraryThing widgets to add useful features to your website.
I use Blogger for my church library's website and in this example, but the widget will work
on other websites as well.
LibraryThing's blog widget will display book lists on your website, but it's good for more
than just lists! You can also make a list containing just one book, and use it to show
a picture of a book you're reviewing. When someone clicks on the image of the book, they'll
get more information about it. This is my favorite way to liven up the front page of
the website by breaking up the text with some color.
I like to start by writing my blog post so it's all ready to go. I leave some room in
the middle where I want to put the cover picture.
Now we'll go to LibraryThing to create the book cover blurb to add to the post. I'm assuming
here that you've already added the book to your LibraryThing collection, so do that first
if you haven't done so already. If it's already in your collection, go ahead and search for
it.
Here's the tricky part: you need to make the book the only one that the widget will find
when it creates a list. You can restrict on collections and tags, so you have a couple
of options: Create a tag that you don't use for anything
else. This is easy but if you're already using tags for another purpose, like putting subjects
on books as I do, it's likely to mess up your system.
Create a collection for that one book. Then the book can go in both that collection and
your main one. That's what I'm doing here.
First click the "Edit your book" link, then click the "edit collections" button.
You'll see a popup like this. Click "Add new collection." It will expand.
Fill in the name. I like to use the author's last name and a word of the title. Make sure
it's something you won't use again. Click Save.
Now on the book editing page under Collections, click "show all" to see all the collections.
Check the box for the new collection. Be sure to leave "Your library" checked as well so
the book shows up in your library collection. Then click Save. You should see that the book
is now in both collections.
Now we're going to make the widget itself. Click the More tab at the top of the page,
and then the Widgets and Extensions link on the left. Once you're on the page, click the
LibraryThing Blog Widget link.
Here's the page where you make the widget. It's easier than it looks!
Make the following changes: Layout -- 1 column by 1 row
Animate -- Don't animate Collections -- Select collections, just the
one you made for this book Widget title -- No Title
Link -- I'd suggest changing to "Widget title goes to my library" if you want people to
go to your library's collection. That's your choice, though.
Leave everything else alone unless you're feeling adventurous and want to play with
customizing the style. I never do! Click Refresh after making all the changes
and make sure the book cover looks good. You're going to need everything that's in
the "Embed this widget" box on the right side of the page. Just copy it all into Notepad
for now.
Now go back to your blog post and click the HTML button. It should look something like
this, with a few tags where you left room for the blurb.
Now paste in all the widget code you copied from LibraryThing. I like to do it with a
tag before and after it. That tag means to go to the next line, so it should make
all the spacing work if you have one before and after the blurb.
Don't worry if you don't understand anything you just pasted in. You don't have to understand
it to be able to use it! Now if you go back to Compose you won't see
any changes, but don't panic. To see the blurb you have to click the Preview button and look
at the preview version of the new post. If you want to change anything you can go
back to LibraryThing and fiddle with the widget settings. Click the Refresh button again and
get the new widget code. Paste it into your blog post, replacing the old code.
Otherwise you're ready to publish your post!
Here's what part of the page looks like with the book blurb added to a review. You might
have to wait a few seconds for the cover image to load. If you want to know how you can create
some of the other features on the page, check out my other videos!
Thanks for watching! Please feel free to contact me with any questions or feedback. Here you
have my email address and LinkedIn profile. I've also provided a link to the church library
website I've created so you can see how it looks. And I take requests if there's something
else you'd like me to do a video on!
And yes, girlwsquirrel in my YouTube channel name is short for "the girl with the squirrel
tattoo." Ask me about it!