107 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
107 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
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how do you define a book collection?
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my book collection is the set of all books.
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i prefer physical books to e-readers.
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unfortunately i have quite a few these days.
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i want to read them all eventually!
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i also tend to live in quite small places
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and i want to be able to move city easily!
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so here's my system for organising my physical book collection.
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i want to:
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* read books i already have
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* read as many different books as possible
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* minimise physical storage requirements
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* keep track of books i've read
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* gather books i don't already have
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constraints
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* i don't know for sure what book i will want to read next
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for every book in the world
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* i either have or have not read it
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* i have access to it or i don't
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so i sort my book collection with 4 categories
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*-------------------*-----------------------*
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| unread | read |
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| have | have |
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| 37º2 le matin | L'Homme des Jeux |
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*-------------------*-----------------------*
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| unread | read |
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| haven't | haven't |
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| Das Kapital | Frankisstein |
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*-------------------*-----------------------*
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i can then begin to optimise my collection.
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* i do not have this book, and i have read it.
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* i have this book, but i have not read it.
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* i have this book, and i have read it.
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* i do not have this book, but i have not read it.
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the books i am most interested in having nearby are unread ones, as i would like to read as many different books as possible.
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books i have already read i don't need nearby anymore.
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i might pass it on, or store it somewhere with less of a premium on space.
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i could also attempt to track where it is!
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based on my requirements and my categories, i create four lists for the books
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* ready
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* all done
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* read and gone
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* hunted
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that looks like a decent start to the system, so i suppose now i'll start collecting!
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so i'll use markdown lists in the format
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```
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* [x] author - title # reading
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* [ ] author - title # nearby
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```
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when collecting music i use artist - year - name
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however, publication year is an extra step that will slow data entry, so won't use this to start with - i have a lot of books
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i realised i had a gpt-4 sub and that it could look at pictures now so i gave it a go
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i fed it some photos and some formatting preferences and i got out perfect markdown lists
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```
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- [ ] Doctorow, Cory - Walkaway
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- [ ] Ferreira, Pedro G. - The Perfect Theory
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- [ ] Hadfield, Chris - An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth
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- [ ] Heinlein, Robert A. - Beyond This Horizon
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```
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books are lovely are great to look at, but the mishmash of fonts and presentation are a nightmare for indexing.
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now we have some good and lovely metadata :)
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this is an imperfect method, as the only way i can check it is still by combing through the physical books manually
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but it does let me target my combing after identifying problems in the index
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and in the meantime gives us a bunch of data to play with
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markdown lists also allow me to mark some items in a list
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this is looks flexible, so i think in my 'ready' list i will mark which book(s) i am currently reading
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```
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- [ ] Doctorow, Cory - Walkaway
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- [ ] Ferreira, Pedro G. - The Perfect Theory
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- [ ] Hadfield, Chris - An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth
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- [ ] Heinlein, Robert A. - Beyond This Horizon
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```
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the other lists i will leave unmarked for now, until i think of something to do with them.
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as for doing things with them, i wrote a [python script](#) which processes the data in the now-populated all-done and ready lists to yield some interesting (?) and fun (?) results?
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[example output](#)
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