Geekery of the day

When I was eight, I opened my own public library. I tagged the spine of every book on my shelves with handmade Dewey stickers. Each flyleaf got a book plate: "Ex Libris Danny Gregory". Then I opened the door to the public; a few neighborhood kids and some friends of the family came by, got library cards, chose books, had them logged on index cards and went off with them. Then I discovered the downside of being a librarian — you books are gone and sometimes never come back. When the losses reached the tipping point, my library closed.
What I liked most about the experience was logging all the books; carefully writing down the names of the authors, books, and publishers, recording the page counts and the printing dates. When I was thirteen, I created a card catalog for every book I read. I typed in all of the identifying data (including the year and my age) then wrote a sentence or two on what I thought of the book. Many are embarrassingly pompous.
I've continued to write down the books I read though I have rarely if ever gone back and read the logs. They usually require a couple of decades of aging to have any interest. There's something in me, a brown streak of anality and probably some minor bit of OCD that has made me covetous in this way. I love arranging things, logging them, imposing my own logic. I'm not an especially neat person but I like order. and I like it perfect. I was once told by an astrologer that I am a triple virgo — not sure exactly what that means but it suggest the sort of inflexible, dictatorial character my sister occasionally accuses me of. So does Patti come to think of it. It's probably unattractive but has its utility.
Anyway, though this self analysis has given it a creepy aspect, I am very excited about a new find. It's called "Delicious Library", a fantastic utility that lets you easily scan the barcodes on your books and create a beautiful database of your collection. I simply plugged in my elegant little iSIght camera into my laptop, then aimed it at the backs of a handful of books from my shelves. In three minutes, I had scanned in sixty books. The program instantly went on the web, downloaded all of the book's data, including a synopsis and a copy of the cover. It even recommended similar books I might like. I can rearrange the books as with any database. I can even create a system of shelves to match the real ones in my shelf so I could find any book I want immediately. I can find out how many drawing books I own, how many cheesy novels, all in seconds (it also works with music, DVDs, and one day maybe shampoos and socks). I can't wait to finish loading in the whole bunch. Maybe I'll share the catalog.
But no borrowing, sorry.

June 12, 2005