This is exactly what i was thinking off. Yes, this type of list is something like what I would like to have. Of course, everybody will have their own idea for what books would go where, so the discussion page (which is on most wikis that I know of) could be used among members to discuss where they think certain books would belong and why. Jared Andrew Sly wrote on 11/08/2006, 3:21 PM:

Yes. I do perceive a need for something like this.

In my searching for author information for the online catalog, I've run across plenty of sites which have their own list of selected titles from PG arranged, or tagged, or what-have-you, according to the interest of whoever put together the list.

So, is it better to say, "let everybody make their own way of organizing what is of interest to them", or do we want to make some kind of categorizing availible on gutenberg.org?

Not long ago, on this mailing list I mentioned different ways this might be approached, and what my preferred approach would be. Unfortunately, it turns out that, for technical issues, using mediawiki in the way I was imagining is not possible.

Marcello has set up an example of the type of list that could be used here: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Detective_Fiction_%28Bookshelf%29

What do you think? Would you like to make more lists like this?

A hand-edited list like this where you can specify the order and sub-grouping, and add editorial comments can certainly be useful in some cases.

Andrew

On Fri, 11 Aug 2006, Jared Buck wrote:

...

Hey, would there be any way we could be able to create a system for searching by subject matter for books? I have a mind to create a CD of books about and by native american indians for a girl i really like and the search mechanism is just not robust enough, searching full text takes too much time either. Being able to enter a single term under subject should be able to bring up a whole list of books related to that subject matter. Like, searching for science fiction should bring up a list of books that ARE science fiction, not just books with the words "science fiction" in the title or in the text.

Jared

_______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

_______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

-- . .:. .:::. .:::::. ***.:::::::.*** *******.:::::::::.******* Dmitri Yalovsky ********.:::::::::::.******** ********.:::::::::::::.******** USS Authority *******.::::::'***`::::.******* ******.::::'*********`::.****** Asst. Chief of Engineering ****.:::'*************`:.**** *.::'*****************`.* .:' *************** . .

Dave: That's exactly the point. We couldn't expect anyone to do that. Other than having a miraculous grant from somewhere to hire a professional librarian for a couple of years. :) However, variations on what are sometimes called "Social tagging" schemes might be workable in our case. This may lack the precision of traditional library cataloging, but it is much better than nothing, has flexibility to reflect the aspects that volunteers are interested in, and can be easily contributed to by many people. Simply making lists, as I mentioned earlier, does not fulfill my vision of the full potential, but perhaps is a place to start for now. Andrew On Sat, 12 Aug 2006, Dave Fawthrop wrote:

On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 14:49:55 -0700, "Jared Buck" <JBuck814366460@aol.com> wrote:

|Hey, would there be any way we could be able to create a system for |searching by subject matter for books? I have a mind to create a CD of |books about and by native american indians for a girl i really like and |the search mechanism is just not robust enough, searching full text |takes too much time either. Being able to enter a single term under |subject should be able to bring up a whole list of books related to that |subject matter. Like, searching for science fiction should bring up a |list of books that ARE science fiction, not just books with the words |"science fiction" in the title or in the text.

Are you volunteering to read and categorise all 18,000 books, then write the program?

On Sat, 12 Aug 2006, Dave Fawthrop wrote:

On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 00:01:57 -0700 (PDT), Andrew Sly <sly@victoria.tc.ca> wrote:

| |Dave: | |That's exactly the point. We couldn't expect anyone |to do that. Other than having a miraculous grant from |somewhere to hire a professional librarian for a couple |of years. :) | |However, variations on what are sometimes called |"Social tagging" schemes might be workable in |our case. | |This may lack the precision of traditional library cataloging, |but it is much better than nothing, has flexibility to reflect |the aspects that volunteers are interested in, and can be |easily contributed to by many people. | |Simply making lists, as I mentioned earlier, does not fulfill |my vision of the full potential, but perhaps is a place to |start for now. | |Andrew | |On Sat, 12 Aug 2006, Dave Fawthrop wrote: | |> On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 14:49:55 -0700, "Jared Buck" <JBuck814366460@aol.com> |> wrote: |> |> |Hey, would there be any way we could be able to create a system for |> |searching by subject matter for books? I have a mind to create a CD of |> |books about and by native american indians for a girl i really like and |> |the search mechanism is just not robust enough, searching full text |> |takes too much time either. Being able to enter a single term under |> |subject should be able to bring up a whole list of books related to that |> |subject matter. Like, searching for science fiction should bring up a |> |list of books that ARE science fiction, not just books with the words |> |"science fiction" in the title or in the text. |> |> Are you volunteering to read and categorise all 18,000 books, then write |> the program?

PG has IIRC 1 1/2 paid employees, and our founder works for free, when he could be employed as a full Professor at some university.

Would you be willing to put PG's finances on a ?proper? footing, otherwise everything is up to volunteers, who are our greatest asset :-)

Funny, that's exactly what I thought I _was_ saying. Perhaps my attempt at sarcasm did not come across clearly. My interest is very much in encouraging volunteers to participate. But rather than restricting it to the small handfull of people who occassionally edit the catalog, opening it up to a broader group. Andrew