Comments on: Libellus Personal Library

By: Almager

Almager — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:32:20 +0000

As a matter of fact both fields Isbn-10 and Isbn-13 must be in the data base.

Regarding importing isbn number from a file, it can be easy to do, but it may allow to send to many isbns at a time and isbndb has a limit of daily queries, so maybe the program is better as it is.

I found some issues with the application, like the fact that is the book title that is used as a key, that means that if you have two (or more) books with the same title you can only register one, I would preferred Isbn as the key, but then if you type your information manually maybe you won’t have or want the isbn of the book, so a compromise should be worked, I would suggest to use isbn as the key unless it is blank, in this case use book title as key.

Other issue is with books with several authors, the program is addressing only one author when retrieving data from isbn.

I downloaded the code to review it – and maybe make some changes but I don’t have much time available (thats why I’m using it instead of building one myself).

Anyway the program is very useful as it is, even is there is room for improvement.

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:14:09 +0000

oops.. seems that my xml got missed out. Sample again:
<ISBNdb server_time=”2009-01-20T06:08:15Z”>
<BookList total_results=”1″ page_size=”10″ page_number=”1″ shown_results=”1″>
<BookData book_id=”world_war_i_a62″ isbn=”0756607418″ isbn13=”9780756607418″>
<Title>World War I</Title>
<TitleLong/>
<AuthorsText>
written by Simon Adams; photographed by Andy Crawford
</AuthorsText>
<PublisherText publisher_id=”dk_pub”>New York : DK Pub., 2004.</PublisherText>
<Details change_time=”2008-11-04T21:35:22Z” price_time=”2008-10-22T19:18:46Z” edition_info=”(lib. bndg.)” language=”eng” physical_description_text=”72 p. : ill. (chiefly col.) ; 29 cm.” lcc_number=”" dewey_decimal_normalized=”940.3″ dewey_decimal=”940.3″/>
</BookData>
</BookList>
</ISBNdb>

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:10:53 +0000

Hi,
Regarding a) isbndb does provide isbn10 as well as isbn13 so that should be no issue. You can just verify for yourself by looking into the XML:

−

World War I

−

written by Simon Adams; photographed by Andy Crawford

New York : DK Pub., 2004.

here ->

shows both the isbn10 as well as isbn13.

Regards,
Jack

By: abmason

abmason — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:30:39 +0000

In response to a) I designed the app around the fact the only free web service that offers access to ISBN data uses ISBN-10, so that issue is up to isbndb.com.

In response to b) when I get time to rework the application, I would prefer to allow importing via CSV. With my current work schedule, I still have no idea how long its going to take to rework the app right now.

By: Jack

Jack — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:57:57 +0000

Hi,
Nice application. A few comments:
a) instead of using ISBN, should we not be shifting to ISBN13 as that is the new standard?
b) Instead of entering the ISBN’s one by one, how about importing the ISBN’s in bulk from a text file?

Regards,
Jack Schnider

By: abmason

abmason — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:01:31 +0000

Sorry, didn’t realize I didn’t have the source link up.

http://code.google.com/p/libelluspersonallibrary/source/checkout

By: Almager

Almager — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:01:23 +0000

You mentioned is open source.
I googled it but can’t find it.
Where can i download the source ?

By: Joanne

Joanne — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:09:49 +0000

Have spent about 10 hours in the last 2 days looking to replace my old program that just decided to quit on me. After downloading 7 new programs to investigate, it looks like this is the one that works like my other. Now I just gotta find out how to move my library collection over to this one.
I hope I don’t encounter any bugs that I have been reading about in the future. Wow, I really thought I was going to be out of luck. Thank you for your time and talent you put in this program. Greatly appreciated!!

By: abmason

abmason — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:44:48 +0000

The SqlLite dll is indeed in the install package, unless something went awry in the installation. Are you running x64 system? I’ve heard of some people having issues with SQLite not running on 64 bit systems.

By: DuckPuppy

DuckPuppy — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 03:43:39 +0000

I just downloaded this after running across it and reading the comments here…

I can’t get it started, since it crashes on launch. I was able to create a new library on the first launch, then it crashed.

It seems to be crashing because the SQLite assembly is missing. Apparently, it’s not in the install package. I’m going to try to download it I can figure out which .NET SQLite you used.