I keep checking books out of the library that I've already read.

Does this happen to you?

I swear, it's clear that a book blurb is not enough to remind me whether or not I read a book. All those damn Dirk Bitt books by Clive Cussler involve treasure hunts and international espionage and I stupidly did not glance to see what the man was doing on the last page of the book and if THAT sounded familiar, because its generally the only part of this book series that is remotely unique. Don't ask me why I read this stuff.

Covers change, new editions come out, and often the hardcover version of a book looks nothing like a mass market or trade paperback does. Still, the something that drew me to the book still lurks, drawing me back again. Until I get home and chapter 2 is sounding rather familiar.

Too familiar.

So this is what I want: I want to be able to request a super library card. Yes, I'm even willing to pay for it. I want this library card to store a simple history of the books I've checked out. This way, it's private (I have the only copy, like some of these mobile medical record ideas). Ideally, the librarian COULD warn me at the library when I'm about to check out a book I've already checked out before, but that's all the data that would be transited OUT of the card, other than the little stuff they already have on them for the library's use.

At home, I would be able to read this card and keep my own bloody records if I like.

Ok, so this smacks of going overboard and a hacky workaround for what should be much more straightforward. This is not really what I want. Frankly, all I really want is for the library to be able to broadcast, to me, with my permission, some simple data, ideally in the form of an RSS feed that I am responsible for storing (the library cannot be responsible for keeping lendee histories for space and privacy reasons) but even an email would work (I can strip it myself and make my feed).

Hmm. But this doesn't solve the fact that only part of my reading material comes from the library. The rest comes from friends, Amazon.com, eBay, etc. So what now?

Ok, I revise my previous idea. I clearly need a little mobile app that can scan/take in ISBNs and other book barcodes. It means I have to scan my books twice (the library card for checkout, but myself for my list) but it does allow me to add any book I have in my possession. Maybe some cute little ratings, dates, etc. Output: again, the RSS feed would be sufficient. Like the netflix feeds they let you do.

Yet another mobile idea I will never get around to, but would like to have. Any takers?

Posted by sorsha on March 15, 2007 2:54 PM | Permalink