[kwlug disc.] a bunch of books i'm willing to *loan* to the LUG

[unsolicited at gto.net]

Joe wrote, On 3/21/2007 8:27 AM:
> Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>>   i mentioned this once upon a time -- i currently have a pile of
>> techie books (lots of o'reilly stuff, naturally) that i'm not quite
>> ready to *give* to the LUG but, since they're just gathering dust
>> while i work on other projects, i'm happy to make them available thru
>> the LUG until such time as i might need any one of them back, and
>> people can sign them out just as they would any other book belonging
>> to the LUG.
>>
>>   is there some way to implement this easily?
>>
>> rday
>>   
> It sounds like a good idea to me and I have a stack of books I'd be 
> willing to lend out as well until I need them.

See below. Seems to me this would just be a 'library' entry with the
addition of an 'owner' field. [Could get more sophisticated with
'owner calling for return' fields, etc.]

> As for implementation of a lending/tracking system, I found a drupal 
> library addon: http://drupalib.interoperating.info/library_modules

Implementing a library/tracking system on the new KW-LUG website has 
been a topic of discussion on more than one occasion. We haven't yet 
found a solution that feels right. But we'd sure like one.

Part of the problem is many Drupal modules aren't being maintained, or
more importantly, don't work with the (latest) version of Drupal we're
running.

I last looked through the modules perhaps a month ago. As your search
reveals, Biblio did turn up, however from what I read it's for
authored / a writer's works - it doesn't feel like what we're looking
for. LibDB, which looks likely, is no longer maintained and apparently
doesn't work with the current version of Drupal.

Charm has found Telico to be a useful thing, but that's a KDE app, not
a Drupal module. (I expect we'll seed any kwlug.org version from 
that.) We don't want to get into a local custom programmed thing due 
to long-term maintenance / conversion concerns.

> Alternatively, using a wiki application is probably the easiest setup 
> and it would allow collaboration and tracking of available books and 
> signouts. If the wiki were appended to the existing kwlug drupal site it 
> wouldn't require a second registration and everything could be 
> centralized.  I'm not sure how many people have admin access to the 
> website though or have time to add it. I'm willing to put a wiki up on 
> my server and/or add one to the kwlug site if I am given appropriate 
> access.
> 
> ~Joe

Could you please talk with Richard, the kwlug.org site god, to see if
this resonates with him? From what you've written it sounds like you
have the expertise to accomplish this. It also sounds like such a wiki
would be portable to any other possible iteration of kwlug.org.

A nifty solution to this would certainly catch the attention of
several here. e.g. Enter an ISBN number, details come in, references
back to book's web site (for table of contents, sample chapters,
etc.), member comments ('good book', 'not as easy a read as {this
library} book'), who's got it, etc., etc., long term forward/backward
compatibility with old/new entries, etc. I know nothing of Wiki's -
don't know how/if it can do forms, etc., etc.