Re: Re: Re: Virtual Distributed Library

Ah, but how do I know what books you're offering?

Sure, you could put a section into your personal page, but in order to track down a book, a prospective user would need to look up everyones' personal page. Not very easy, and very demoralising since the vast majority of monks are not offering books yet.

So does the Monastery set up a virtual library catalogue where interested monks register what they're offering? Actually this could be an interesting idea with possibilities beyond just books...

Comment on Re: Re: Re: Virtual Distributed Library

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Virtual Distributed Library by arhuman (Vicar) on Feb 23, 2001 at 13:51 UTC
A jcwren tag would be perfect for this task... (like location, birthday...) Few tags would do fine: Book-Offered Book-Needed His page whould be a perfect place to look for available/needed books. UPDATE : I must say why I prefer this way, rather than SuperSearch. The stats page allow us, by it centralized stat gathering a way to got global stats about the way books move. I mean with few property inside some tags, (namely: title of the book, people who gave/received it, date it was given/received) we could be able to know how many times a book was given, who get/gives the books, and a lot weird/useless stats... (The average time a book stay in someone hands ?) (Most asked book ?)	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Virtual Distributed Library by epoptai (Curate) on Feb 23, 2001 at 14:04 UTC
As i said, we could use Super Search as the card catalog (homenodes are the cards). (elaborate example deleted) Update: arhuman's idea would work except there would be lag because homenode changes are instant whereas stats are not. Tyke's concern with the obscurity problem could be addressed by adding some mention of it to one of the site FAQs, and book-related form elements in super search. ps - jcwren says homenode tags update every day at 3:00AM EST/EDT pss - homenode tags can now be scanned immediately Update: Virtual Distributed Library Online!	[reply]
Re*5: Virtual Distributed Library by Tyke (Pilgrim) on Feb 23, 2001 at 14:20 UTC
The problem is that the newbies-- the ones who most need the books() -- are fairly unlikely to think of using super search to look for "books-offered". Some sort of visual pointer is needed to give a newcomer the idea that there might be such a thing as a virtual library. () <Hmmm>Isn't this being needlessly patronising to newbies?</Hmmm> Update epoptai I'm not trying to knock the idea. I think that it's good. Just taking it one step further to make it even more useful :)	[reply]