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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.
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?
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...
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?
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
they were inserted in the spine of the book.
I've had more success, with inserting them in the spine of the person borrowing the book. Then I tell them the "Escape from New York" story, and that if I don't get the book back . . . they will be missing a few disks in their backs . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
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.
Which is a good way to do it if you want to audit your friend's book collection or something - just put on a cover and it makes it distinct so when you go to your friend's place, you can ask them about your book.
But to be honest - are you lending books of significant value to you? If so, then maybe keeping track of your stuff is what you need to do, of it's of super value to you, either buy a lending copy, or don't lend out that particular book (if your friends are friends, they will understand if something has significant value to you). If not, well, realize that it's probably gone, buy another copy if you want, and move on. Lend stuff out, you're bound to lose some stuff. Deal with it and move on.
It goes both ways too - your friends lend stuff to you.
Only load out books you don't actually care if you get back. Don't loan anyone more than one at a time. When they want to borrow another one, tell them to bring the first on back first. If they say they don't have it, then they lost it, and can't borrow any more until they replace it. If that's a problem, they're not a friend, they're a parasite.
In other words, act like a fucking grown up.
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.
I suspect that the whole "backlit screens cause eyestrain" meme comes from some magazine article written circa 1985 by a liberal arts major who, after reading one of the first etexts off a crappy VGA screen, decided to write off the technology for all time to come. One of the reasons I went to ebooks is because I'm vision-impaired and wanted to reduce eyestrain. For me it's much easier to read an illuminated screen in a font that I choose in a size that I control. Now I don't care about looking for the exact place where the light is at the right angle.
Or don't loan books. Always consider them gifts.
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.
I just put Stephanie Myers dustcovers on my books, then people can't return them to me fast enough. In fact, most people don't even want to borrow them any more.
No, they don't. First, the OP specifically said he used an iPad. And second, the e-ink ereaders are going the way of the Dodo; everyone's just using iPads and Android tablets for e-reading now.
"Get better friends or gift the books. I've a very large collection and people sign them out on a paper and return them when they're done. "
Ask for a 20€ deposit, first it will make losses more bearable, second, nobody will want to borrow from you again.
Since there is, thankfully, no central registry of who owns what copies of what books ...
That's Snowden's leak for next week, you insensitive clod!
There is nothing better than a book lined wall
Yes there is. A book lined wall that swings out and reveals a secret passage!