As you'll see from the comments on the post below (Account Planning School of the web - Lending Library) we have a bunch of people wanting to borrow books and a bunch of people willing to lend them. Does anyone know of a simple, web-based way to manage this? Or does someone want to build one? I can imagine it would be useful to more than just us.
Any ideas?
A good starting point might be to clone bookshelf.ning.com, which already makes it easy to keep track of who owns which book, and for people to add reviews. After you become a Ning developer (which is free) you can clone Bookshelf in a couple of clicks. Then, examine the code for the Book object (in the file class.Book.php) - there are several directions you can take it in. If you need any help, give me a yell.
-- Yoz Grahame, Ning Developer Advocate
Posted by: Yoz | November 22, 2005 at 12:26 PM
Sorry, I forgot to add my email address: (my name) @ ninginc.com.
Posted by: Yoz | November 22, 2005 at 12:27 PM
delicious library combined with deliciweb work...but the former isn't free.
delicious library
http://www.delicious-monster.com/
deliciweb
http://homepage.mac.com/imaxinc/DeliciWeb/
Posted by: ritter Vonali | November 22, 2005 at 01:49 PM
thanks guys, great ideas. I love the power of asking questions on this thing. What does anyone think would be good? I quite like the idea of the ning thing because it'd be a good new toy to play with and it seems like it could be more of a community thing than just my books - but does anyone have any thoughts?
Posted by: russell | November 22, 2005 at 03:32 PM
Hi Russel,
I like the ning idea also, seems easy to use. It can become big.
One question: will the library work overseas? (I am from Brazil)
thanks
Posted by: fernanda | November 23, 2005 at 12:41 AM
yes the library will work overseas. why not? I'll only have to pay postage one way.
I think things might be on hold for a day or so though while I get this ning thing built (and coz I'm going to be traveling)
Posted by: russell | November 23, 2005 at 10:47 AM
I'm trying to do this via Ning but there's a bit of a delay while they approve me as a beta developer - maybe it's a Thanksgiving thing. I'll let you know when it's up and running. Meanwhile thanks to everyone else for their offer of books. I'll incorporate them into the Ning thing when it's built.
Posted by: russell | November 24, 2005 at 12:05 PM
OpenDB looks like it could do what you're asking for. And it could be tarted up to be web 2.0 using obligatory gradient backgrounds, some ajax effects, etc.
http://opendb.i-am-vegan.net/
It doesn't look toooooo tricky to set up, check their wiki for more details: http://opendb.i-am-vegan.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
It looks like a dogs dinner, but I'm sure the interface could be tweaked and the whole thing simplified.
One thing I liked from the original posting was the use of photographs of shelves (I might have rotated it by 90 degrees, looks odd, but makes it easier to read).
Posted by: Iain | November 24, 2005 at 05:22 PM
Eureka Moment (maybe)
Why not create a Flickr group and run it that way (with notes on photos) each person would only have to look after their own photo. Book titles/topics could be contained in tags. It's a bit Heath Robinson, but have a look at my example and see what you think (move your mouse over the books to see what's going on with them):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iaintait/66505139/
For me, using something that exists in a new and interesting way is one of the guiding principles of Web 2.0 - so there you go...
Posted by: Iain | November 24, 2005 at 05:26 PM
Iain - genius. I really like the Flickr idea. I'm going to experiment with that now.
Posted by: russell | November 24, 2005 at 06:17 PM