On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 08:28:08AM -0600, Josh Stompro wrote:

Have you taken a look at Listal.com and or librarything.com, they allow for cataloging and sharing of personal collections and seem to be going the way of allowing loans to friends. Before you roll your own it might be something to look at. Listal allows you to create groups of members and their collections, and there are numerous feedback mechanism, plus tagging etc. Just an Idea in case you haven't looked at those. Josh

First off, I would have to apologize for the irrelevant subject line. I had intended to post a question obviously, and then decided to introduce myself first. I got a bit carried away and posted without changing the subject line. Oh well. We have discussed the idea of working trough existing systems, but we decided to set this up as a community library and somewhat specialized. This library is more a social thing and, if you will, a screening process. What will allow it to work is the fact that we can set it up on a DSL and run with virtually no cost so we can be selective about listings and membership; we are after a quality here, not a quantity. We won't be boasting of the number of listings. It's a different model; call it a flight from the pabulum. We intend to continue the spirit of the old library. I see the whole direction of librarything.com as the opposite direction. That isn't to say it's wrong, it just won't do the same thing. It's a good place to trade novels. No one here is very excited about it or has even joined because he's trying to be too broad in scope. I wouldn't post my "best" books there because people who don't know me wouldn't understand why I'm even interested in them. I would be branded and get hate mail I know. Looking through their catalogs makes it very obviously that there are others out there that feel the same, that's why, in all the thousands of books, I can scarcely find anything I would regard as compelling to read. Our library is intended as an avenue for a different set of interests. It is an alternative library, not more of the same in the public library vein. We should probably put a link on our home page to librarything.com to send as many people as possible there. I support what the guy is doing, but it can never be a library of esoteric materials. His model precludes it. Here, you'll have to contact people and come to a meetings to join. People who will be listing here will have some understanding of what kind of materials this library is designed to list, they won't be listing their movie and sports magazines so, in short, we can further the intent of the library. The idea here is that many of us have pretty special interests and the kind of material we are interested in can get very hard to find. This gives people not only an audience and a mechanism to meet interesting people, but a way to keep track of where their books have gone. We can also give local and personal assistance to help barcoding and more rapid entry and, if we choose to hold dues and if we find adequate membership, we can take on a floor space. We have discussed a coffee shop. We intent is to set up a place for meetings etc. a social thing. You can call it a club that operates on line. Cheers.

Tom Redfern wrote:

...

Members of the list:

We have here in Seattle Washington a project in which I thought this list may have some interest. Of course, this involves Koha.

snip ... -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- * Tom Redfern | Address: 12225 Fremont Av N, Seattle WA, 98133 * * | Phone: (206) 365-4077 * * | Email: thos at fonebone.net * -------------------------------------------------------------------