Peroniko's recent activity
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
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Comment on What's your current PC wallpaper? in ~tech
Peroniko LinkDark version of Scarlet Tree by axo1otl (https://kde.org/announcements/megarelease/6/dark.png). It looks really pleasing to me and doesn't clash with anything I have on my desktop. The light...Dark version of Scarlet Tree by axo1otl (https://kde.org/announcements/megarelease/6/dark.png). It looks really pleasing to me and doesn't clash with anything I have on my desktop. The light version i very nice too, but the dark version has some really nice purple colors.
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Comment on Home book cataloguing suggestions in ~books
Peroniko LinkI am in a similar situation to yours. A few years ago, I decided to physically sort my books by Dewey Decimal Classification, but it was mostly a waste of time because I had to spend a few minutes...I am in a similar situation to yours. A few years ago, I decided to physically sort my books by Dewey Decimal Classification, but it was mostly a waste of time because I had to spend a few minutes trying to find the appropriate classification number for each book. I eventually abandoned Dewey and switched to using COBISS IDs to sort my books, since all of them have already been classified in the COBISS system. I still haven’t finished the sorting, because I’ve been looking for a similar system for software cataloguing (COBISS is only available to libraries, sadly) so I could organize my shelves and build a database at the same time. In my opinion, whatever solution you choose is going to be very time-consuming initially, but it’s worth it once you’ve catalogued your initial collection.
In terms of software, there isn’t any one tool that fits everything. I’ve tried Tellico (by KDE, open source). It lets you search different sources and pull metadata for books by ISBN. Even though it’s the closest to what I’m looking for, it crashed twice in the first ten minutes when I tried to customize it. It didn’t save anything, so I lost everything I entered, which makes it too unreliable for my use case. I also experimented with Obsidian before, using custom templates, but it felt too hacky. Obsidian recently added a first-party Bases plugin, which looks promising, but I haven’t tried it yet. A big plus for Obsidian is that everything is stored in Markdown and can be synced across devices. The downside is that once you start relying on plugins, you end up locked into Obsidian, even though Markdown itself is an open standard.
I’m not a fan of ISBNs personally. Most of my books don’t have one, and even if they did, there would always be a few without it, which would throw the system off. Instead, national library numbers (Library of Congress or the previously mentioned COBISS IDs) are probably more reliable anyway. I’d assume 99% of the books you own are also catalogued by your national library, and you can use those numbers to sort your physical collection just like a librarian would.
In my opinion, the most useful approach would be something extendable, like a custom CSV (even though some people advise against CSV) or an SQL database. A system that can grow and adapt to your needs would ultimately serve you best.
The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul. It tries to explain the role of technique in every aspect of the society. Here's a byte of what he means by technological society from on of his interviews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2ZDZya3fS0