A database where I can see an author and then similar writers, influences, genres, tones, his works with reviews? Amazon is pretty close, but is there anything else?
― David Allen (David Allen), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:53 (twenty years ago)
Uh, the public library is organized by the Dewey Decimal system last time I checked
― David Allen (David Allen), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:56 (twenty years ago)
But the library may have a database of books, with what you're looking for. Not just to search their holdings. They at least should be able to point you to a good website or other good resource.
Ned Raggett to thread. You're the guy who can represent both Allmusic AND a library ...
― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:59 (twenty years ago)
mmmmm, Boolean operators....
― Huk-L, Wednesday, 19 January 2005 21:02 (twenty years ago)
I once saw a website, and god help me I cant remember the URL, but it was neat. It was kind of this interactive flash kind of program where there were authors names floating around and would be drawn to your mouse-over and would lead you to simmilar ones as you clicked on them. It also had bios and reviews of works.
― David Allen (David Allen), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 21:06 (twenty years ago)
I spent a little bit of time trying to organize this a few years ago, but it's a pretty large task. Do you list every edition? If not, then which edition do you list? Do you least each translation (say, of
beowulf?) Do you list poetry? By anthology or by poem? Or by part of a poem?
Do you include pulp and airplane fodder, or just literature? Do you include instruction manuals? Do you include cookbooks? If not, why? If so, where's the line? Do you list by an autobiography's author or its ghostwriter? Do you include foreign texts? Where do you acquire the data for it? Where do you acquire the capital to build the back end, and where do you acquire the capital to write reviews for every book ever written, every poem ever written, and captions for every published author?
And, given that most books are not currently in print, how do you convince someone to finance the project? Perhaps a major publisher could finance it, but why would they build something that also helps their competitors? A bookstore (B&N, Amazon) could do it, but they seem happy with their current web format, or else they would be doing more. What would the operating costs be?
Also, you can't really get Larry Hipster to write book reviews the way you can get him to review the latest Radio 4 record.
It's not impossible, but it's a tough thing to wrap your head around, big enough that I gave up on it.
― polyphonic (polyphonic), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 21:33 (twenty years ago)
No offense polyphonic but are you right in the head? I can't imagine only one person tackling this.
― 57 7th (calstars), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 22:25 (twenty years ago)
No offense polyphonic but are you right in the head? I can't imagine only one person tackling this. I wasn't gonna do it all myself, I just wanted to organize it so I could reap most of the rewards, assuming rewards existed.
― polyphonic (polyphonic), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)
one year passes...
"I once saw a website, and god help me I cant remember the URL, but it was neat. It was kind of this interactive flash kind of program where there were authors names floating around and would be drawn to your mouse-over and would lead you to simmilar ones as you clicked on them. It also had bios and reviews of works."
It's www.gnooks.com - and only 18 months too late to be of use.
― James Morrison (JRSM), Thursday, 7 September 2006 06:06 (eighteen years ago)