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Ask Slashdot: An 'Ex Libris' For My Books In a Digital Age?
New submitter smalgin writes: While I cannot boast an extensive library, it keeps growing every week. I share the books I like the most with my friends and acquaintances. Unfortunately, some of them are sloppy and forget to return my books, so to speak. I would like to put some mark, sticker or a stamp (Ex Libris) on my books to make them recognizable later. However, living in a digital age (blah blah yada yada) I cannot help but wonder how I could improve the ex libris beyond an ink stamp on a title page or a glued-on postcard-sized monstrosity some libraries use. Has anyone tried using RFIDs to identify his books? Please share your experience.
Make a digital copy
Funny you should mention RFID; this is exactly what my public library uses. My retired uncle was actually hired to install them. If I recall correctly they were inserted in the spine of the book.
Mark with a QR code along with a line or two of text? You could put whatever you want in the QR code; your phone # or email address.
If you use a RFID, only someone with a reader could see what it says.
No matter what you try to do (aside from a QR code), odds are perfect that some of your books will be completely unreadable by whoever is holding it (no equipment, wrong software, "why the frig do I have to buy an RFID reader just to borrow a book - WTF is wrong with you!?", etc.)
Seriously - some problems do not require a tech/digital answer. Get those little "Ex Libris" stickers and call it good.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I'm not the librarian but I work closely with one and we've looked at RFID. Regular barcode tags are going to be far cheaper and you can get a shitty barcode scanner cheaply ~$30-50 although a good one is ~$300.
As for a system to actually track them I'm not aware of a FOSS one but I haven't looked either as the district chooses not the building. We did have Surpass as a separate stand alone system for some paperbacks and netbooks for awhile which was decent but these are serious systems for circulation likely well beyond the scope of what you're looking for (and likely price range although I don't know how much it cost) so I'm not sure what to recommend there.
If you're going to go the full library route you want something that can handle MARC records. Good luck =)
How does having RFID solve the problem? You should just ask your friends to return the books.
Since this is /., it has to be 3D-printed. You need to 3D-print your own Ex Libris relief plate. Then you ink it and stamp it onto your book pages.
A couple of years ago I commissioned Oracle and SAP to build me a simple book-tracking database app; it should be done by May of 2021 if we don't run into any more compatibility issues and the money keeps flowing.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Tiny shift in mindset and the whole problem disappears.
If someone gives you a book back, so be it. If not, no worries.
They have no value if they're not being enjoyed. Seriously, unless you're a collector of especially rare and fragile books - who cares? If you've lost track of who you loaned some novel to, you probably didn't care about it that much to begin with.
I've actually finished paperbacks and left them on the seat of a train. I'd be glad to know someone else has been able to enjoy something that would just take up space at my place. I'm not advocating leaving your hardcover TAOCP volumes or reference books about - but really, half the great works are out of copyright, and the other half are easily accessible in electronic format.
Better yet, donate them to a library. That takes care of your problem, and makes the books available for others.
First Rule of Personal/Professional Library
Never loan your books to anyone for any reason. Period. Full stop.
Second Rule of Personal/Professional Library
See First Rule of Personal/Professional Library
Instead of trying to be terribly modern and applying some kind of 'digital' solution to the problem of keeping track of your books, why not go a little more medieval and try a proven solution that works?
The libraries here affix a clear plastic book cover over top of the book and jacket, protecting it. Then they apply stickers with text and bar codes on top of the book cover.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
All of my technical books that I bring to work get my initials marked on them. I close the book and do it on all the sides with pages. There's a few books I don't think I would ever have gotten back without that.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I don't loan books or money with any expectation of seeing them again.
Most folks that I know that are serious about claiming their books use an embosser to imprint one or both of the end pages. You can get a custom one made for $20 on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Library-Book-Embosser-Great-Gift/dp/B0010EEX1C
I used to loan video games, movies, etc to so-called friends. The ones that don't return them (mostly my wifes looser friends) don't give a fuck, and you'll probably never see them again.
Just glue GPS trackers to them if you're actually retarded enough to have to ask how to keep track of your books.
You mention using a stamp to identify your books. That sounds adequate to me, but I don't know your situation. Can you tell us in what way(s) this solution is incomplete for your needs?
Write your name & email on the page-edges with a Sharpie.
It is impossible to miss, and too much of a pain for a 'sloppy' lendee to remove.
It's as simple as that. If you don't know someone all that well, or someone has proven themselves to be unreliable or flat-out untrustworthy with your books, then don't loan them out to that person again. Nothing you do to your books is going to get around someone who just doesn't care about returning your property, and using some device that costs you a few bucks will just mean you're out that much more money if/when your book isn't returned to you.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Unless you and your friends have RFID readers in your fingertips, use the old fashioned method that is human readable, it is tried and true tech and needs no batteries.
All the books in our library (35 years together makes for lots of books, as we are avid readers) have been embossed. We picked one up from one of those "We'll personalize this for you" un-asked for catalogues. It cannot fall off or be pulled off & clearly indicates to whom the books go home to. I still cannot get my darling wife to wait until the paperback comes out. Talk about heavy reading...
No, an RFID tag wouldn't help but to record it on your side that you lent it. I've been using a different-but-similar version of this product for twenty years:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Lovers-Borrow/dp/0913515248
Yes, you have to take the time to write a title and name of who you lent it to and when.... I've not found it problematic.
If I were *bound and determined* to do so, I'd think about a barcode reader and printing out barcodes on label tabs... and/or using the built in ISBN or UPC. But you'd still have to muck around with creating an index of your book titles. That way would be a much larger waste of time to me in creating the indexes - unless you end up loaning the same books again and again.
Whenever you loan something to someone, take a picture of them holding it with your phone. Then you'll know who to track down if you want it back.
One could employ rfid, url, pgp. But why not a stamp? Sometimes the old methods are fine.
Back when I worked at Sperry Univac, I started lending out some of my large collection of SF novels. I just did what libraries of that era did: When I took a book to work, I put a 3x5 index card in the book, with the name of the book on the card. If I lent it to someone, I took the card out and put it in the card box I used for that purpose.
I'm sure I could have written something in DMS1100 to run on the Univac 1100/80, but seriously... why? The mini card catalog solved the problem.
https://dev.opera.com/articles...
I just make a note in the notes app on my phone when someone borrows something of mine. I note who it is and what they've borrowed (books, movies etc..). Makes it a lot easier.
If you are asking "how can I secretly mark my books so I can prove my asshole friends steal them" then there are many answers from UV-fluorescent pens to RFID tags to serial-numbered DNA taggants. Depends how much effort this is worth to you.
Some years ago I remember seeing an Ex Libris plate that ran something like, "If you are going to borrow this book and not return it, please just take it because I'd rather lose a book than a book and a friend. Perhaps you should consider that is more important?
Some books (art albums) lose all appeal in digital form, unless you throw in free 48-inch Retina display to view them.
Isn't that what the 4K TV fad is for?
If you are using acid free paper, then I would suggest stamping stuff onto the paper, including a bar code, rather than putting an RFID chip. Among other things, any library worth it's salt should have so many books that an RFID chip would have to be physically removed from the book case to be readable without reading the other books.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Most e-readers use eink which isn't backlit and looks just fine in the sun.
True. But in sun or shade, an eink display looks all gray, not like the colorful graphic novel or diagram-heavy textbook you expected.
They managed to fit a barcode scanner into a smartphone. Do you think they can do the same with a ZIP and 5-1/4" slot?
No. But if Square (not Enix) managed to fit a credit card reader into an external device, a Zip drive or floppy drive that connects to the USB OTG port as a mass storage class device shouldn't be too hard.
You've got a cell phone with a phone. You're handing these out to people, physically.
So take a picture of your friend holding the book. Maybe even save it to a specific location like 'books lent out'. Works with singles and stacks. No tricky software, no custom solutions, no worries about QR codes or scanners or online web interfaces.
Works for more than just books, too. Video games, clothes, power tools, etc.
Never works - they just have a book on their shelf with your sticker on it.
Put a CD ROM with a root kit in each book. It will make it easy to remind your friends to return your books.
I have a reference library. That doesn't leave the house. It also changes very little. I have four sets of encyclopedias, one of which is 46 years old (and doesn't get handled with bare hands). The only one I keep more or less up to date is my five shelf-feet of Oxford Blue.
I have a library of fiction, I don't lend those but what I DO do is give them. If a visitor sees a book they like the look of, my philosophy is simple: take it, read it, pass it on. A few people make a good guess as to the type of fiction I like and bring me new reading that I'll often kill over one or two days then on the shelf it goes. The average stay for a fiction on my shelf is six months.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
"Because we can" is not a very good reason. Stamps and stickers have proven so far to work very well in identifying the owner, and if they don't _want_ to give back your book, no RFID tag will make them.
If you want to get serious, print out an empty table with four columns: "title", "lent to", "date", "signature", and everyone you give a book to has to be written down. On return they are crossed out. If you want to be fancy you can also go digital but that might be more pain than it's worth.
Create a photo album calld "Stuff I Lent".
When somebody borrows something, take a picture of them with it.
When they return it, delete the picture.
Works for anything physical as long as it's big enough to be seen in the photo.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
At the library of Faculty of Humanaties and Social Sciences at University of Zagreb, Croatia, they connected RFID tags for both users and books to Koha. Koha is a well known open source Integrated Library System, and the guys at Zagreb used open source technologies throughout.
The main guy Dobrica is a genius for this kind of stuff, and you should check out his talk at http://www.slideshare.net/dpav... . It has all the necessary links to other information and to the code they made.
Make a watermark file, then use winzip/7zip/winrar to compress that file with a very long passphrase like "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy cats," then concatenate your watermark file to the end of your document file using the command line: copy realdoc.pdf+watermark.7z watermarkdoc.pdf The document should still open, but it will now be tagged with your watermark. I see this on pictures all the time (people steal pictures, frequently).
Make it simple.
Have a stack of small name stickers printed and put those on the inside cover.
Archive and track your titles with Delicious Library or a similar tool that can scan the book-barcodes with the webcam on your computer and then automatically fetches the books metadata and coverfotos from the intarweb (amazon, etc.).
You can then use Delicious Library to keep track who's got what.
The namestickers are enough to let people know who's book they've still got.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
How about a blacklight/ultra-violet fluorescing label on the spine - that way you can turn the light off in a room full of books, turn on a blacklight and see the book almost immediately??
Pair it with human readable, QR and RFID labels and you've got a pretty comprehensive label. If you have a stick on label that goes in the front cover with a part that then wraps on to the cover and around the spine you'll be able to see it from the front, back or spine side too. Make it a strong contrasting colour and it will stand out on most book spines.
Like a MAILTO or something? Bonus if you include the title of the book as the subject. You can play with the idea here: http://www.qrstuff.com/
I was able to quickly make one that opened the mail client and fully populated the message. Print them out on some stickers and you're good to go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The "glued-on postcard-sized monstrosity some libraries use" you refer to is called a book plate.
maybe use nfc tags. they're fairly cheap and have enough storage for things like summaries and maybe lorez cover art...
Just lick all your books so everyone is too grossed out to take them.
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
You take a picture of the person holding the book when you loan it out. When they return it, they take a picture of you holding it. If they don't return it, kick their ass.