[Sigia-l] OT: Library Thing

[Listera]

William Quimby:

> A scholar...

I have no problems with specialized tools for the 17 1/2 professionals in
any given field. :-)

I considered Delicious Library as a non-professional app, and it's clearly
marketed as such. While I love a lot of its design, it left me with an
answer to a non-existing problem, or more precisely, a misplaced problem.

> Point - there may be a lot of useful information in the collection that "data
> mining" could dig out.

Precisely. And sooner we get to 100% digital media better such tools will
function. I want the transition to digital to happen faster, instead of
wasting time on the management of physical containers like books and CDs
digitally.

Sometime ago here, I gave the example of a giant cookbook I was given for my
birthday, full of gorgeous pictures for each recipe. They look so good that
I want to try out many of them. However I hardly ever try. Putting this book
on my Delicious Library won't change that. Why? Because as a book, it's not
searchable in a faceted way, I can't print out a recipe to take to the
kitchen, I can't share it with a friend, I can't customize a meal based on
what's inside my refrigerator, I can't point to a recipe and ask a web
service what wine would go with it, I can't group thematic recipes together,
etc. The fact that I know this books is still in my library with several
hundred other books is no consolation to me: it gets little use.

---- 
Ziya

Best Practices,
For when you've run out of your own ideas and context.