Slashdot Mirror
The Home Library Problem Solved
Zack Grossbart writes "About 18 months ago I posted the following question to Ask Slashdot: 'How do you organize a home library with 3,500 books?' I have read all the responses, reviewed most of the available software, and come up with a good solution described in the article The Library Problem. This article discusses various cataloging schemes, reviews cheap barcode scanners, and outlines a complete solution for organizing your home library. Now you can see an Ask Slashdot question with a definitive answer."
I have boxes of books in the basement, shelves of books upstairs, stacks of books in th edining room, CDs, DVDs, tapes, records, all over the place.
I solved the problem by ignoring it.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
...of my ex-daughter-in-law, who decided to surprise me for my birthday by reorganizing my (3500) books:
By height.
rj
My solution was "marry a librarian". Worked very well for me, you might consider trying it.
That's what I do. And her BS is in Computer Science, so win-win. Except for all the emacs versus vim arguments. Gah! So many years of schooling, and she can't understand that vim is superior?
Do you mean "ex-daughter-in-law" or should that say "late daughter-in-law"?
Seriously, what the hell?
Doesn't everyone here have a hobby or two they spend a fair bit of money on? Perhaps it's your computer gear, maybe it's model airplanes, maybe it's your car or your audio system. Last I checked, an awful lot of geeks had a particular hobby they enjoyed and spent money on, and they don't have to be 'rich bastards' to do so. They just have to value enjoying themselves over... What? Hording money? So this man's hobby is reading and his library, and he enjoys organizing it in a creative way.
Sheesh.
Wife is a slightly different version of the same product as Girlfriend.
It comes with some more restrictive licensing, and there's a little bit of vendor lock in, but some people don't object.
Opinions seem to be mixed on if you should stick with Girlfriend, but it largely depends on your needs and long-term plans. Many people who add the add-on package Child 1.0 end up going this route, but it's not mandatory.
It's got higher maintenance costs than Girlfriend, but has some features not found in that package as well, so it's a trade off.
Sometimes upgrading a version of Girlfriend can have a steep learning curve, as they tend to randomly change features with each major version, so you should really determine if your current version of Girlfriend meets your needs before you upgrade.
YMMV.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Having both Wife and Girlfriend installed may cause serious problems. Although some people have reported long term success, there have been no definitive studies.
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.