So, this doesn't really help with authors, but for library use in general, I'd like to be able to BROWSE SCHOLARLY/LITERARY . Or something like that. Really, anything that lets me search for a subject and specify what type of piece I'm looking for. Unless that already exists, then just ignore me.

That already exists, but is all on the library, and isn't set for each book universally. If the Librarian and their sub-librarians don't set subjects (Categories), they don't exist!

EDIT: I have some ideas, but it'll take me a little while to organize them into a coherent post.

I would love to be able to filter searches by more than one keyword, the way you can do for designs nowadays. Similar to the above, BROWSE SCHOLARLY SUBJECT PHILOSOPHY, BROWSE LITERARY AUTHOR LENDREN, but also BROWSE AUTHOR TALAN SUBJECT AETHERSPACE, or even BROWSE SUBJECTS ZVOLTZ GARDENING.

Enyalida:

That already exists, but is all on the library, and isn't set for each book universally. If the Librarian and their sub-librarians don't set subjects (Categories), they don't exist!

EDIT: I have some ideas, but it'll take me a little while to organize them into a coherent post.

As far as I know, the subjects are set by librarians and aides, meaning it's not really useful, as you have the opinion of the subject-setter as to what the book is about. It might be nice to come up with a list of preset subjects so that there's a better framework to choose from when selecting subjects for a book, perhaps limiting the number of subjects one can assign to a book (possibly based on word count) as well so that you don't get into the "word salad" problem, like so:

Sentience, Humanity and Divinity written by Mistress Vionne, Soprano of the Dark Harmony and edited by Arkzrael.
Published as a scholarly book on 11th of Estar, 167 CE (1st edition) by The Wyrden Archives.
Access Level: Public
There are 1/1 copies available for checkout.
It will cost 0 gold to checkout this book.
It is stored at the annex: Annex of Wyrden Scriptures
Word Count: 3089 (weighted: 12)
Book Rating: 112
This book contains the following subjects:
RACES ORIGINS HUMAN FAE GODES NATURE SPIRIT PHILOSOPHY
This book is a winning prestige publication.

And there's the issue of typos. >_>

Okay, my suggestions are more focused on books and writing in general than the Library system itself, but I think they are related enough to put here.

The idea behind all of these suggestions is to make it so that it's more of a thing to have a personal collection of your favorite books, and so that you have a more personal connection to the books you own.

1) Allow Artisan shelves to be designed with books in mind. Shelves should hold a limited amount of books, and not use the BOOKSHELF or BROWSE commands at all, methinks. Also allow for $books to be put into descriptions, so that when you glance into a room and see the shelf you can have things like: "A refined shelf of mahogany is fastened to the wall here, firmly holding 4 books." or something. Not the most creative example. These are much cheaper than bookshelves, so it's more accessible to the average homeowner!

2) Add a bookbinding skill that allows them to produce prints of books much more cheaply than the original cost of a single book. Perhaps have this mention something on the PROBE about it not being the original, instead being of x printing. This should probably be where the bookbinders mark is. Like so:

The size of a book, this journal is of expensive vellum construction, with a fine leather binding.
It has no title and the author is listed as being Shamanka Enyalida Zayah. It is written in the
common tongue.
It weighs about 1 pounds and 4 ounce(s).
It is a first edition book, printed by Bookbinder!

or (if it's not first edition)

The size of a book, this journal is of expensive vellum construction, with a fine leather binding.
It has no title and the author is listed as being Shamanka Enyalida Zayah. It is written in the
common tongue.
It weighs about 1 pounds and 4 ounce(s).
It is a X edition book, printed by Bookbinder.

This means that if someone creates something like a textbook/primer, you can print up a bunch (probably to order), and sell them that way. This should probably be paired with published books no longer automatically showing up in each org's library. You have to go buy the book from someone. Books should probably become available for 'automatic' purchase after a while though.

3) Create a syntax for the original author of a text to sign prints of that text. This would add a line to the probe like "It has been signed by the author.", and could contain a dedication, readable by something like READ DEDICATION/SIGNATURE. Hold book signing parties, book groups!


EDIT: @Kalaneya Yeah, that's what I meant by it all 'being on the library'. I have some not so fond memories of being on Library staff, drudging through countless books to sort them into categories.

Kalaneya:

This book contains the following subjects:
RACES ORIGINS HUMAN FAE GODES NATURE SPIRIT PHILOSOPHY
This book is a winning prestige publication.

And there's the issue of typos. >_>

OH GOD MUST FIX.

And yes, catagorising is a massively soul destroying job that I feel bad attaching aides to. However as so many people seem to miss them I'm going to make more of a concerted effort to do so.

It's not so bad if you divide it up. Sometimes it's kinda zen to do gruntwork like that, I'd be willing (for Serenwilde) to do some of it during the times I'm feeling in need of a meaningless distraction.

I'm really new to the Librarian gig, and I have GOT to sort out the Celest subject list. Honestly, you don't even want to see it. I have lots of thoughts about the library system, and I'm looking forward to really exploring the whole thing in detail, but I don't have coherency at the moment so my ideas must wait for now.

However, I can say that my main issue, when I first discovered libraries and such, was figuring out how to USE the thing. I don't know, as a complete and total noob to Lusternia it took ages for me to figure out the commands. Also, I didn't even know you could browse by publisher until I read this thread. I was dedicated and interested enough from both IC and OOC standpoints to stick it out and get to a point where I understood it (mostly) but if there were some way to make it more.. Intuitive? Or even just an easier way to get to a full command list. I think more people, especially novices, would get way more out of this huge resource that I bet many people don't even think about.

Well. BOOKSHELF is for bookshelves only, the artisan things. LIBRARY is for libraries.

However, some orgs (like Serenwilde) have annexes, which are library rooms where all of the Library commands assume you only want to look at books published by that org. LIBRARY commands then work only on that room's setting, CATALOGUE works for all of them. At least, that's how I think it works. Similarly, in the world library, rooms are automatically sorting by category. But you can use CATALOGUE to search among all the books.

You can at the very least go through BROWSE LIST and remove redundant or misspelled subjects. As Enyalida said, it's something constructive to do for a few minutes when you're bored.

Yeah, I'm all about mindless tasks like this, no lie. I'm excited to get started. I'm also working on expanding into annexes. So much to DO, AHHHH.

We should honestly get rid of the whole subjects thing and replace it with BROWSE TEXT which searches the text of the books.
---
As for Enyalida's suggestions, I wouldn't mind #1 or #2, but would like to point out that #2 already exists and that I strongly object to changing how books work in a way that leads to there being "editions" of a book which don't share the auto-updating property of current bookcopied books.

I'm still waiting for book submissions to generate honour for being submitted, and not simply for winning prestige. I seem to recall Eventru mentioning once that this was something that was Coming Soon, but it never materialized and thus I am depressed.

Eek, a syntax to search the text of a book would be nasty. Nothx to lagging out the game every time someone is looking for a book with the word "decadent" in it.

Evidently they already have a pretty efficient text search algorithm in place - you can use it to search through all the HELP files.

The current SQL database is far more efficient than the old flat file system they used to use for everything.

Deschain:

Evidently they already have a pretty efficient text search algorithm in place - you can use it to search through all the HELP files.

There's also a lot less text in those help files.

All it would take to make a really effective search would be to pre-index, since you'd be searching on words, not parts of words. The first time they built the index would be a bear (and could potentially be done on a separate server), but after that, maintaining it by indexing each book as it's added or modified would be easy-peasy. Downside of course is you couldn't search on partial words, or on phrases (but could on more than one word -- it's just that if you found "ice" and "cream", a book might not talk about ice cream, but just mention cream in one place and ice in another), but that would still be a HUGE improvement over the total lack of anything we have now.

Kalaneya:

One of Janalon's books got torn apart by the Divine Scholars, in a really insulting way. Like so:

(I did snip out a bunch of useful facts that helped to understand the history and why the book did not capture the subject in the IG context, but then came this completely unncessary tirade. Should have stopped while you were ahead.)

"For an alleged 'scholarly work' this is poorly researched, your facts are bassackwards and, frankly, this reads more like a fictitious variation of what happened in a Gaudiguchian brothel. Not even a revisionist historian from Glomdoring caught up in an okorushi-induced high could pass this for 'history' - nonetheless a potential prestigious compilation. That said, allow us to state that it was a pleasant read, despite the factual errors - unfortunately, it was not submitted for the literary notation."

I'm for Divine Scholar comments as long as they are held to a level of professionalism.

Comments that are insulting to the writer just discourage people from writing. I certainly asked myself whether it was worth contributing to the community after I read those comments. I'm not spending of effort to write something on top of my other RL obligations, then have someone make fun of it. While the comments are entertaining to someone on the outside who didn't spend RL hours putting a work together, to me, it's just a smack in the face. And I didn't even write this book.

I mean, "bassackwards"? Really? Go away.

The scathing remarks by the "divine scholar" were all wrong as well. Janalon provided all her sources and quotes of where information came from to back her writing. Mobs were changed after the fact to try to make the admin look a little more correct.

This is an instance where the writer was torn into because of the mob writers and the area designer not lining up (aka GrandMother Scorpions lines have been changed).

I really would like to see Janalon compensated or an apology, its not her fault the information was CORRECT when it was written but changed from design.

Her piece was fully correct when written. :(

Yeah, that whole situation was absurd and (to me) an abuse of power; 'This doesn't fit with my idea of the way things should be, I commented this way and it was proved that I was wrong, so instead of apologizing I'll make myself right'.

An apology is very deserved, as is fixing the 'Divine Scholar' comments.