(2013-04-02) Open Book Data

Thinking (at Brain Fart stage) about Open Book Data... why?

• concerned over Amazon buying Good Reads - shouldn't depend on outside services for storing my own data. (Just exported my list....)
  • I keep my to-read/buy list there (to-buy-for-others is kept in my Barnes And Noble wishlist), though I also have a section in my Book List.
  • why do I bother rating books at Good Reads? I don't think I've ever discovered or vetted a book from that.
• read something recently raising the issue of EBook-discovery if Amazon isn't a Common Carrier
• even ISBN isn't a good ID - with increase in EBook Self Publishing you can't assume everything will have an ISBN.
  • Wikipedia uses ISBN, hmm should look for reference to an EBook that doesn't have one....
• digging into my shelves finds all sorts of books I forgot I own, and makes me wish I had all their contents in a Search Engine.
  • part of me feels I should at least have them listed somewhere, but really what's the point? Though if I could suck down more Meta Data (e.g. Table Of Contents, Index) for each that might be a start to that Search Engine...

Discovery is actually a couple different things

• finding that a book exists (given friends' interest, reviews, coming up in the process of searching for info)
• finding a way to get a book

cf Open Library; Book Server; OpenReview; WikiLog