From cathal.alexandria at gnostai.org  Sat May  8 05:10:38 2010
From: cathal.alexandria at gnostai.org (Cathal Mc Ginley)
Date: Sat, 8 May 2010 10:10:38 +0100
Subject: [Alexandria-list] [ANN] Alexandria 0.6.6 beta 2
Message-ID: <20100508101038.4b366852@jadzia>

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Just to push things along, I've made another beta of Alexandria 0.6.6.
If there are no major problems, I should be able to release the final
version in a week or so.

The tarball and deb file can be downloaded from RubyForge: 
http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=205&release_id=42021 

(I'll try to update the Alexandria PPA as soon as I can.)


New in alexandria 0.6.6-beta2:

* Fixed debian packaging to include libhtmlentities-ruby dependency
* New provider Douban (China) thanks to Sun Ning
* Fixed Goodreads CSV import and added LibraryThing CSV import


Just before beta1 in December, I'd pretty much crossed off 2/3 of
outstanding Alexandria bugs. I'll be running through this list
http://palatin.as/wiki/AlexandriaBugList066
and closing reports on the RubyForge Tracker over the next few days,
before the final release.

   -   Cathal.
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From elsey-jdc at illinois.edu  Wed May 26 12:19:36 2010
From: elsey-jdc at illinois.edu (elsey-jdc-alias)
Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 11:19:36 -0500
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Importing to Alexandria
Message-ID: <4BFD4A18.8060505@illinois.edu>

Hello -

I am working with a Juvenile Detention Center that cannot allow staff or 
youth to access the Internet.  We are currently working to revitalize 
the library located within the center, and would like to use Alexandria 
to maintain the catalog.  However, we don't want to manually enter each 
text into the catalog.

We are able to physically record ISBN numbers and then add the materials 
off-site, but we would like to be able to import these easily into 
Alexandria.  We do not have any computers (other than the computer 
on-site) available to run Alexandria at this time.  Is there a template 
or spreadsheet we can use to add information about the texts and then 
import this to Alexandria?  Is Alexandria compatible with file types 
used by on-line cataloging resources, such as librarything?

Thank you for your time!

Jeanie Austin
Project Manager
Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center Library Project
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

P. S.  If you would like to learn more about the project, we maintain a 
web presence at http://elseyjdc.wordpress.com/

From cathal.alexandria at gnostai.org  Wed May 26 13:32:04 2010
From: cathal.alexandria at gnostai.org (Cathal Mc Ginley)
Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 18:32:04 +0100
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Importing to Alexandria
In-Reply-To: <4BFD4A18.8060505@illinois.edu>
References: <4BFD4A18.8060505@illinois.edu>
Message-ID: <20100526183204.12d7f533@jadzia>

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On Wed, 26 May 2010 11:19:36 -0500
elsey-jdc-alias <elsey-jdc at illinois.edu> wrote:

> Hello -
> 
> I am working with a Juvenile Detention Center that cannot allow staff
> or youth to access the Internet.  We are currently working to
> revitalize the library located within the center, and would like to
> use Alexandria to maintain the catalog. 

Hi Jeanie,

It's exciting to hear of Alexandria being used in actual libraries. I
hope its limitations affect you too badly (it was designed for home use
primarily). In particular, each "Library" in Alexandria can only have
one copy of a particular book since it considers its ISBN to be a
unique key. (I get around this by keeping multiple copies of the same
book in different "Libraries", usually one per bookshelf.)

> Is there a template or spreadsheet we can use to add information
> about the texts and then import this to Alexandria?  Is Alexandria
> compatible with file types used by on-line cataloging resources, such
> as librarything?

Yes, using Alexandria 0.6.6-beta2 you can import using CSV files
exported from either LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com/tools) or
Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/review/import). (You can also make
your own CSV files which match either of these formats, using any
spreadsheet program (OpenOffice.org Calc for instance). I've
attached sample CSV files in both formats.) 

(Note: not all data from the CSV file is kept, just the data visible in
Alexandria. Also, LibraryThing CSV doesn't support multiple authors; if
you import while online, it tries to find the book online and adds
extra authors if it finds them.)

If you're on a machine that's not connected to the internet, you
should go into the Preferences and de-select all providers before you
import (otherwise it seems to hang while trying to search for extra
data online).

The main issue you'll have with not having an internet connection is
that the book covers won't be imported: the cover images are not part
of the export CSV file, so Alexandria usually does a standard provider
lookup to add the cover image to the imported data.

If this isn't a problem, then you can pretty much ignore the rest of
this e-mail :^)

However, if you can gather the cover images somehow, you can add them
to Alexandria directly by knowing how they are stored. If you have a
library called "My Library" then the data and cover files are stored in
the directory:
  ~/.alexandria/My Library

If a book has the ISBN-13 9781932100433 then the data file will be
9781932100433.yaml and Alexandria will look for the cover image in
9781932100433.cover (this is really just a JPEG image file, usually no
more than 200 pixels high).

You can also add cover images one at a time using Alexandria to select
files from the computer, but remember to use fairly small images, not
high-quality scans, since Alexandria will scale down large covers
anyway.

> We do not have any computers (other than the computer on-site)
> available to run Alexandria at this time.

I imagine this is because Alexandria runs on GNU/Linux only. If you
wish, I can try to put together a windows-compatible Ruby program which
will grab images for you all at once (by ISBN search online), so you can
push them directly into the ~/.alexandria directory.

> Thank you for your time!

Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help,

   -   Cathal.

> Jeanie Austin
> Project Manager
> Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center Library Project
> Graduate School of Library and Information Science
> University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
> 
> P. S.  If you would like to learn more about the project, we maintain
> a web presence at http://elseyjdc.wordpress.com/
> _______________________________________________
> Alexandria-list mailing list
> Alexandria-list at rubyforge.org
> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/alexandria-list
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From nedwidek at yahoo.com  Wed May 26 15:20:14 2010
From: nedwidek at yahoo.com (Erik Nedwidek)
Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 12:20:14 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Importing to Alexandria
In-Reply-To: <4BFD4A18.8060505@illinois.edu>
References: <4BFD4A18.8060505@illinois.edu>
Message-ID: <527881.27565.qm@web110408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

This might work for you. To get the ISBNs quickly, easily, and error free for the most part get a USB barcode reader. I got one for right around $40 from Newegg.com. No internet needed for the laptop/computer you use. Just start a text file and start scanning. The reader simply acts as a keyboard and sends the ISBN and a new line. On a connected computer, you can import that list of ISBNs and Alexandria will look up all of the info. Copy the resulting ~/.alexandria directory to a thumb drive and take it to the computer at the center.

Maybe a bit of sneaker net involved, but it would work.

Alexandria keeps the files in its own YAML format so it probably isn't directly portable, but I've written a program that I use to push the info to a MySQL database and then to my website. Really nice to be able to check and see if I already have a book while in the middle of the book store. :)

Erik Nedwidek



________________________________
From: elsey-jdc-alias <elsey-jdc at illinois.edu>
To: alexandria-list at rubyforge.org
Sent: Wed, May 26, 2010 12:19:36 PM
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Importing to Alexandria

Hello -

I am working with a Juvenile Detention Center that cannot allow staff or youth to access the Internet.  We are currently working to revitalize the library located within the center, and would like to use Alexandria to maintain the catalog.  However, we don't want to manually enter each text into the catalog.

We are able to physically record ISBN numbers and then add the materials off-site, but we would like to be able to import these easily into Alexandria.  We do not have any computers (other than the computer on-site) available to run Alexandria at this time.  Is there a template or spreadsheet we can use to add information about the texts and then import this to Alexandria?  Is Alexandria compatible with file types used by on-line cataloging resources, such as librarything?

Thank you for your time!

Jeanie Austin
Project Manager
Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center Library Project
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

P. S.  If you would like to learn more about the project, we maintain a web presence at http://elseyjdc.wordpress.com/
_______________________________________________
Alexandria-list mailing list
Alexandria-list at rubyforge.org
http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/alexandria-list



      
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From cathal.alexandria at gnostai.org  Wed May 26 17:59:16 2010
From: cathal.alexandria at gnostai.org (Cathal Mc Ginley)
Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 22:59:16 +0100
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Importing to Alexandria
In-Reply-To: <527881.27565.qm@web110408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
References: <4BFD4A18.8060505@illinois.edu>
	<527881.27565.qm@web110408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20100526225916.33a77ec7@jadzia>

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On Wed, 26 May 2010 12:20:14 -0700 (PDT)
Erik Nedwidek <nedwidek at yahoo.com> wrote:
> ...
> get a USB barcode reader.
> ...

Actually, I think this just what Jeanie suggested they have done:

elsey-jdc-alias <elsey-jdc at illinois.edu> wrote:
> We are able to physically record ISBN numbers and then add the
> materials off-site,

I'm guessing they use some other program or web-service to turn the
ISBN list into a set of book data. Hence the export-import route. Of
course, copying a .alexandria directory is the easiest way to do this,
and has the advantage of preserving cover images too.

   -   Cathal.
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From victor at chuma.org  Wed May 26 16:27:27 2010
From: victor at chuma.org (Victor Rehorst)
Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 16:27:27 -0400
Subject: [Alexandria-list] Taking Alexandria list with you (was: Re:
 Importing to Alexandria)
In-Reply-To: <527881.27565.qm@web110408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
References: <4BFD4A18.8060505@illinois.edu>
	<527881.27565.qm@web110408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4BFD842F.1010908@chuma.org>

On 26/05/10 03:20 PM, Erik Nedwidek wrote:
> Alexandria keeps the files in its own YAML format so it probably isn't
> directly portable, but I've written a program that I use to push the
> info to a MySQL database and then to my website. Really nice to be
> able to check and see if I already have a book while in the middle of
> the book store. :)

I had the same problem but a slightly different solution - mostly
because I don't have a data plan for my mobile phone.

Instead, I used Alexandria's export function to export my library to
HTML, and then transferred the HTML file to my phone's memory directly
so I can check it in the bookstore, even if the bookstore is underground ;)

By the way, YAML isn't a proprietary format, it's is actually a simple
extensible data storage format written in Perl.  I believe it's almost
as old as Perl itself.


-Victor

From aqeel at aqeeliz.com  Fri May 28 07:47:40 2010
From: aqeel at aqeeliz.com (Aqeel Zafar)
Date: Fri, 28 May 2010 16:47:40 +0500
Subject: [Alexandria-list] LibraryThing import giving filetype error 0.6.6
	beta 2
Message-ID: <AANLkTilwW9odnU_TFdt-qVNwW9xFnS1JYfOC4sSRiNV5@mail.gmail.com>

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Hey,

I am getting error "Couldn't import the library - The format of the file you
provided in unknown. Please retry with another file."

I am attaching the .csv file, the original export file was much larger (with
200+ books, and 2K lines), and Alexandria did import most of it, but it
wasn't able to import few books from between and then these books in the
end. Here is the .csv file with the entries that weren't imported, I can't
see anything different in them, any ideas?

Regards,
Aqeel

P.S: I had disabled online sources before adding, as it was taking too long
with them.
- --
Aqeel Zafar
http://aqeeliz.com
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