Billmonk with Public Library

posted 02:14PM May 18, 2006 with tags book library sharing web20 by Lars Trieloff

Gaurav Oberoi of Billmonk just commented on the entry How to manage book lending and borrowing web-2.0-style? that Billmonk now features public library sharing. More details can be found at the billmonk weblog.

Of all three applications (Billmonk, LibraryThing and Stuffopolis), Billmonk is the most polished one and the one I'd like to use for borrowing and lending books, but when it comes to social application features like tagging and finding taste neighbors, LibraryThing is clearly superior.

There is one important feature I am still missing from the Billmonk website: It is an RSS feed of recent changes made to my library. Together with my friend's libraries this can be aggregated into a common library feed for a team.

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Managing Book Lists - Part II

posted 01:47PM May 18, 2006 with tags book sharing web20 by Lars Trieloff

In response to my yesterdays post How to manage book lending and borrowing web-2.0-style? Nicolas Delsaux recommends LibraryThing. The beta geek in me registered at this service and from what I have seen, it looks good. The web design is not 1997-style, you have proper tagging, it is easy to find readers who have very similar reading lists and the other user who has exactly the same book as you. It supports many data sources, among them the amazons, the library of congress and other libraries.

Another nice feature is the bookshelf view to your book list, which is almost what I had in mind when I wished an Javascript-resizable Bookshelf view. Unfortunately there is no lending/borrowing feature in this application, which makes it hard to use for my purposes.

How to manage book lending and borrowing web-2.0-style?

posted 12:38PM May 17, 2006 with tags book sharing web20 by Lars Trieloff


"The Library"
Originally uploaded by The Department.

I've been looking for an web application to manage my book collection and to keep track of lending and borrowing. So far I have been looking at:


But I still see some space for improvements for this service:

  1. Revamp the tagging interface to look more like del.ico.us

  2. Have AJAX autocompletion support when adding items. The first datasource to query would be the database of books already added by other members

  3. Integrate with Rapleaf to keep track of a borrower's reputation.

  4. Create an AJAX-resizeable view of the bookshelf like Delicious Library offers

  5. Offer last.fm-like recommendations for interesting books based on shelf similarity

  6. Integrate with online shops: If I am looking for a book, I will first query my Stuffopolis neighborhood if this book is available for borrowing, if not there will be links to amazon.(com|de)

  7. Provide a Greasemonkey script that will do the reverse for amazon.(com|de). If I am about to buy a book there, notify me if this book is available in my neighborhood.

  8. Allow me to find possible lenders or borrowers based on location, similar interest, and degree of conectivity (like openBC or linkedIn)

Update: Another improvement would be the integration of Google Calenadar to remind me and my friends of the return date for books and other borrowed items.
Another Update: I've added a follow up: Managing Book Lists - Part II and Billmonk with public library.

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Maven2 Book for free Download

posted 06:03PM Apr 27, 2006 with tags book maven by Lars Trieloff

Via Carlos Sanchez: The first book about Maven 2, Better Builds with Maven is released and it can be downloaded for free in exchange to an email address. Maven 2 is a very powerful and build tool for Java and other software projects and the book is written by John Casey, Vincent Massol, Brett Porter, Jason Van Zyl, and Carlos Sanches, all core developers of Maven.