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There has been much
speculation as to what BiblioPhil is and what it's for,
and so I finally decided to put all of your doubts aside
and write up this document which is a hybrid between an
About page and an FAQ, or what I usually like to call also
a RAQ - Rarely Asked Questions (you see, FAQs could be
common sense questions and answers, but what about those
rarely asked questions that are unique to one's problem).
Anyway, somebody sent me a link to
this page
where there was much discussion about BiblioPhil, and so I
decided to use the questions raised on the site as topics
within this document to keep all of the information in a
somewhat organized matter. If there are some unanswered
questions here, please send them my way!
March 23, 2004
- Mike
p.s. It took me like 4 hours
to write this, so maybe you should read it! :)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
GENERAL
QUESTIONS
Does
anybody know anything about BiblioPhil?
Yes!
You lucked out! I happen to be the one who wrote this
site.
bibliophil.com - Are you familiar with this site?
Sorry, it looks like that
domain is already taken by someone. Some people just like
to buy random domain names and then sell them. In some
cases that could be the only source income for an
individual. I don't really like those people, because they
don't really do anything with the domain, and just squat
on it. Bibliophil.com appears to be registered to someone
in Germany. And anyway, I wouldn't want that domain,
because .com = company, and .org = organization (usually
non-profit). And that's what I decided to use. So,
remember, my site is
bibliophil.org!
If you forget the name, just bookmark it.
What
does 'BiblioPhil' mean?
It's short for bibliophile - look it up in the dictionary.
I think bibliophile.org was already taken when I wanted to
register my domain, so there you have it... See the question
above about other people registering random domain names.
Who
are these people? Who is Mike?
Why,
that's me! I'm just an honest tax paying citizen of the
US. There is no company behind the site. So please don't
sue me (I hope that I'd never give you a reason to). On
the other hand, if you wish to buy out this "product",
feel free to make me an offer - as you can see I'm not
making a dime off of it unless somebody makes a donation.
I'm not really an organization, since it's not officially
registered anywhere.
How
did you come up with this idea?
I
always used to use Amazon.com to keep track of my books,
by simply rating them. Amazon then uses your ratings to
suggest other books. But it's very difficult to manage the
books that you have rated. You can't even sort your rated
books, so it became such a pain when the list grew big.
Wouldn't it be just great to have a place where you can
keep track of your entire collection? So I wrote
BiblioPhil really for myself, but then again, why not just
open up the site to the rest of the world by providing
free accounts. So that's how I came up with it.
This
is a bit voyeuristic, isn't it?
Yes,
isn't it fun? You can actually see what other people are
reading! That's the whole point! Of course you can mark
your entire collection private, and then no one will see
your library. But otherwise, if you happen to find a
person who reads the same books as you, check out what
else they're rating high, and maybe you'll discover an
amazing book that even Amazon did not recommend (by the
way, Amazon recommends books mostly based on sales).
Will
your site ever disappear?
I
hope that the answer is no. But one can't really answer
that question. What if I die tomorrow? In case of that
emergency, I added a free export feature - so you should
export your data occasionally just so that you wouldn't
have wasted your time inputting all of the data. Another
reason for the site to disappear may be if a company buys
me and closes the site. Or if the site is going to start
being very expensive, due to a lot of usage, I may have to
limit its usage to a particular set of people. At the end
it all has to do with money, doesn't it? See more info on
pricing below.
BIBLIOPHIL PRICING
How
much does it cost me to use BiblioPhil?
It's absolutely FREE for you! Unless you want to send me a
donation! J See more info below on how you can send me
money.
Then
how much does it cost you to run BiblioPhil?
I am
currently paying about $65 a month to my web hosting
provider, which covers enough space, bandwidth, and as
well as a relational database. If you know a better,
cheaper, but very reliable host that is an NT platform and
runs ASP as well as SQL, please let me know! I just hope
that the bandwidth will not get out of hand and my host
will charge me tons of money, in which case it may cost
too much to run BiblioPhil on my own.
How
are you making any money?
You
see, I'm not. So I'm paying for your fun completely out of
my pocket. Wouldn't it be nice if there were more people
like me? That's why the site is a non-profit organization.
Well, OK, I'll admit, I get some kickback from Amazon by
sending you people there. But I make something like %2.25
off of every purchase you make by going through me! So
please buy more! In fact, create your wish list on
BiblioPhil, and then buy through me - after all I provide
all of the prices and everything! Then I can make money,
and maybe even come out even! Costs you nothing, right?
See the question above on how much this free service to
you is costing me!
How
can I send you money?
Many
ways! Just send it to me! I'm open 24/7! Hehe. There's a
button on the left hand side of the menu that says "Make a
Donation" - feel free to send whatever you want!
ADDING BOOKS
I
can't seem to find the exact book, what should I do?
Try
looking up a book by its ISBN number under ISBN Search.
I
found the book by its ISBN number, but it has no picture.
Why not?
I
pull the pictures for books off of Amazon. So if Amazon
doesn't have it, neither will BiblioPhil. If you really
must have a picture, just search by a keyword and use
another edition of that book. Sometimes I don't really
care what the ISBN is, and I do that instead - I like
pictures too J.
How
can I enter an older book that doesn't have an ISBN
number?
At
this time it is not possible to enter a book without an
ISBN number. You see, I'm using the ISBNs as a unique key
to identify the book. It's also used to look up some
information like the pictures from Amazon.com, and they
track all of their books by ISBN as well. I'm going to
have to look into this issue (you're not the first person
to ask), and see if I can somehow go around this problem.
For now, maybe you can just search the entire catalog for
a more modern edition of your title, and add that instead.
What
about books from other countries?
Well, you see, it's actually pretty simple. The backbone
of BiblioPhil is based on Amazon's database which they
share with the world. So if it's on Amazon, then it's on
BiblioPhil. Right now I am only linking to the Amazon's US
database. I plan to add some features to be able to search
their other databases - UK, Germany, and Japan.
I
already have an Excel spreadsheet with all of my books. Is
there an import function?
At
this time the site does not offer any functionality to
import your existing lists. This is definitely another
good thing to add to my list of things to do.
How
should I rate my books?
Well, the rating system is not set in stone, so it's
pretty much up to you. I'd go with something like this: 5
- Absolutely Must! Every person should read this! 4 - Very
Good, but not a life changing experience. 3 - A regular
decent read. Not bad, not bad... 2 - Eh. Didn't thrill me at
all! 1 - What a waste of time this was! But again, you may
wish to come up with your own rating system specific to
your needs...
CORRECTING THE INFORMATION
The
book's title or author is incorrect or misspelled. Can I
fix that?
Yes! While viewing the book (the page which shows
everyone's reviews, etc), there is a link under the book
title next to its picture where you can submit a
correction for this Title or Author. Feel free to submit
your corrections, especially for author's names and even
cases where it's "First Last" name to correct it to "Last,
First" to keep the books in the correct sorting order.
(Example, change "Stephen King" to "King, Stephen" so that
all books by that author will be grouped together)
I
submitted a correction but it's not showing up. When will
it go into effect?
Your submissions are reviewed individually and then
accepted or rejected - so please give me some time to go
through them. I get tons a day, and it's a manual process.
But I'm not complaining, keep them coming - we'll have a
better database than Amazon when we're done!
MANAGING MY LIBRARY
Is there a way to group books by Year read?
Not yet. Someone brought that up as a nice suggestion
on the message board. I'd have to add that one to my
to do list. Recently I added a breakdown for number of
books read per year. You can see that under your
Statistics.
Is
there a way to sort the books by genres?
No, sorry. I don't classify the books by any category. But
see the next question.
Is
there a way to categorize my library? Create my own lists?
Not at this time, but I'm working on it! You will be able
to create your own lists and add any titles from your
library to them. You can name them as "My favorite
fiction", or "My College Textbooks", or "The Best Horror".
You can even create your own genres if you like. Give me
some time and I promise to add this feature to the site.
I'm sorry, but I'm the only guy who's working on it!
Can
I change the default sorting method in My Library?
Yes! Click on "My Profile" link, then on "My Preferences"
link on the right hand side. There are a couple of options
on there that you can change. And you can change your
Default Sort order to Date Read - this is the best one,
and you'll always see the last read books first!
Can
I change the default sorting method when viewing other
people's library?
Hmm, I didn't think of that one. So at this time, the
answer is no. This will be yet another thing for my list
of things to do.
BUDDY SYSTEM
How
does buddy system work?
It's quite simple. You find a person that you like and you
add them to be your buddy. They get an email with your
request. After they authorize it, you can then have them
as a buddy, and also recommend books to them!
How
can I recommend a book to someone?
That person must be your buddy first. Then, when you're
viewing a specific book (not editing your rating, etc) -
you will see a text that says "Recommend To" with a pull
down list of your buddies.
MESSAGE BOARD
There doesn't seem to be a lot of activity on your message
board. Is it broken?
Well, it used to be broken. But the guy who wrote it,
Jeff, has finally fixed it. So the reason for lack of
activity is you! Feel free to use the board according to
your needs! Create more discussion topics if you must. You
can even discuss any particular book in the entire
library!
How
come there are no paragraph breaks?
This version of message board does not support any HTML,
just simple text. So if you enter paragraphs, the carriage
returns <CR> get converted to plain spaces. I'll see if we
can enhance that.
ABOUT REVIEWS
Are
my book reviews monitored or censored?
No - you can pretty much write anything you want, so
please be nice. I personally love one line reviews. If
your review reveals the plot of the book, please be nice
and check the box at the end of your review, and it will
mark your review to contain a "spoiler". Another user can
then choose if they wish to see your review or not.
How
can I edit my review?
At this time you can not edit your review. I was going to
let other people rate your review (sort of like on
Amazon), and thus you couldn't edit the reviews that were
rated - what if you got a very good rating for a review,
and then edited it to be something horrible. But I never
got around to writing that piece. So I either have to
write that additional functionality, or let you edit your
own previous reviews. For now, you'd have to delete your
review and then write it again. You can use Copy and Paste
in between to save yourself the trouble of rewriting the
entire thing... Sorry...
How
can I export the reviews I've written?
At this time, there is no functionally to export your
reviews. Right now, the export is just a CSV of all of the
data associated with your library. I may consider
appending the reviews at the end of the file, or as
another column. I'll add that to my growing to do list.
OTHER
QUESTIONS
What
does that link "Open Source" on the bottom of the page
mean?
The main engine that drives BiblioPhil's book database is
based on Amazon's Web Services and is written in ASP. If
you're a developer and would like to re-use some of the
code to parse the XML, you can see the documentation on
how to do that by following that link. The source code for
the site is available for anyone's use - it's an open
source!
How
big is your book database?
You can see exactly how many Titles we have on BiblioPhil
on the main page of the site. However, that does not mean
that you can't find more titles than that. What I mean is,
our database is organic - it only has as many Books as the
users have in their libraries! I use Amazon's web services
to search for your books as you search for them, and then
add them to BiblioPhil's database, if you decide to add
them!
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