Comments on: wanting to like books we like

By: sascha becker shine

sascha becker shine — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 11:58:28 +0000

D, check out, http://www.delicious-monster.com/
It’s a mac osx tool for managing collections of everything. It can import from XML, which you should be able to get excel to export fairly easily — but here’s the killer thing: you can use an iSight to scan barcodes. Pow! Pow! Pow! Zing! When my mac comes back from service, I think I’m going to give this a try.

I’m not sure it will handle your collection of papers/articles though.

BTW, I read about this via Apple Developer Collection, which sends out weeky (?) mail highlighting cool uses of mac technology: http://developer.apple.com/devnews/
(There’s some way to get it for free.)

By: Will Sargent

Will Sargent — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 00:02:07 +0000

I know this may seem like a stretch, but have you tried using Deep Prose Software? It sounds like book management is exactly your problem, and with this thing you only have to wave the book in front of a camera and it will read in the barcode.

Disclaimer: I have not used this thing myself.

http://www.deepprose.com/versions.html

By: oedipa

oedipa — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 09:44:36 +0000

danah, this is ‘books we like’, not ‘books we’ve read’. When you worry that “i can’t be bothered to input information”, you’re wanting the site to function as a comprehensive list of every book you’ve read, which is secondary to what the site seems to be aiming for.

The cataloguing function you’re after would be great, both for users who want that and as a means of getting more data into the system. But I doubt most users will remember all the books they’ve read, and most wouldn’t relish the prospect of inputting that data in whatever format.

The planned function (I assume; I’m not involved) is to get people discussing the books that are interesting them *now*, and to help them find new books. And that is a reward in itself: if people post comments and lists at amazon, won’t they be ten times more willing to do so when they’re helping a non-profit group rather than a corporation, and when they can have more fun showing off the weird things that interest them?

Knowing what you were reading a decade ago would be useful for the second, but it has its limitations. What I’m reading now, and what I was reading then, are probably as different as Gwar and Nina Simone.

That said, it would be awesome if bwl could find some way of dealing with what you want to do with it, and I’m impressed by how Brad’s rolling out the red carpet for you.

Some more comments on my LJ (http://www.livejournal.com/users/oedipamaas49/5414.html?#cutid1) – don’t want to clog up here *too* much with mammoth comments.

By: tony

tony — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 21:24:10 +0000

How does a bookstore do it?;)

By: BookBlog

BookBlog — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 11:07:49 +0000

More ideas for book social software

danah boyd wants to like Books We Like, an online service for collective discounts and recommendations in book purchasing. In…

By: Adina Levin

Adina Levin — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 10:48:08 +0000

Amazon wishlist importer – even nicer would be something that combined an Amazon purchase list, with the “I’ve read that” responses to Amazon’s recommendations (which catch books you’ve read but not bought on Amazon).

For this to work, Amazon would need to componentize its records of the books its customers have purchased (from them or elswhere). Then Amazon, or somebody else, would enable the user to create a public view that could weed out gift books (Audobon Quarterly, for the birdwatching uncle), and purchases one might rather not advertise.

By: brad

brad — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 06:35:20 +0000

hi Danah,
great feedback. and yes, as oedipa points out, you’re a little, unique. but we’ll convert your Excel files for you. might take a bit, but it shouldn’t be hard. that’s not really a long-term solution, but it’s a good exercise for us.

we’re in the process of creating an Amazon wishlist importer, which would actually be more generally useful for most people.

thanks again for the valuable feedback, and for being forgiving AND patient.

Brad

By: oedipa

oedipa — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 21:49:46 +0000

ooh! hadn’t come across that before. I like it, whatever the imperfections. Two comments on your post:

1) you’re very unusual both in having such an organised list of books, and in writing so much about them elsewhere. That makes you a valuable user/connector for bookswelike, but also a very pretty one to satisfy. I’m not sure how widely your angst will extend to everyone else.

2) what you’re after in terms of inputting existing lists of books is probably quite easy to tack on, but not something that it’s essential to have from day one. It’d even be possible to do it yourself: just write a script to enter ISBNs into the search box, and add the book to your reading list.

Meanwhile, I’m off to play with it…