this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023

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Bringing the power of books to the fediverse (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Aye mateys, I wanted to share this with you as you may be interested in a discussion on having annas-archive linked to the fedi.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9006151

Hello everyone,

Books are still one of the most important sources of information we have as a human species. However, the media on which this information has been stored has changed considerably over time and with it its accessibility and influence on our society.

Nowadays you can find an enormous range of books and texts online. Most of the time, however, access to them is extremely fragmented, difficult to find, subject to a fee, incompatible with the software platform of your choice or, in the worst case, goes under with its provider over time.

To counteract this, annas-archive was founded to make the knowledge stored in the texts and books openly accessible and to preserve it for future generations. On the other hand, there are platforms such as Goodreads that aim to simplify the joy of reading and the exchange of information, as well as the review and discussion of books and texts.

Unfortunately, Goodreads is a centralized, proprietary solution that in addition also happens to be owned by Amazon. BookWyrm is a decentralized, open source alternative in the fediverse that steps in right here.

Now here's the kicker: what if we combined the power of both platforms? What if we combined the enormous book database of annas-archive with the fediverse, i.e. BookWyrm? Annas archive could benefit from reviews and discussions about the books and BookWyrm could expand its still very limited database many times over.

From my point of view, this would be the perfect combination of two already great projects. What do you think?

TL:DR What do you think about combining annas-archive with the fediverse (BookWyrm)

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm envisioning Bookwyrm behaving as a comments section for anna's archive (possibly all/any decentralised book repositary), but they'd be reviews instead. I'm reminded of discus or facebook that you often get embedded on certain sites.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Anna's Archive is legally grey/black. Bookwyrm is clear, wouldn't mix 'em.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If they tied a bookwyrm comments section to an ISBN number for example then anybody/site could easily have it embedded to make it a universal tool rather than specifically connected to a piracy site.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

We do have OpenLibrary BTW! Already does the job, pretty good.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Reading is so important. It should be free and accessible to everyone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Agreed, but it kinda already is... Ever gone to a library?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I think any official integration wouldn’t be smart. Working on interoperability and a plugin to link them that way would be far smarter. This guy likes decentralization but wants to combine two very different concepts and products lol. I get it though and I love that idea. The other thread also mentions open library which is a legal version of what op posted

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Love the idea of this. I believe slowly building up these alternative, open-source and decentralized platforms will be pay off long term as the centralized platforms bloat and die via enshittification.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Sidenote: I wish I could do more to encourage friends on the internet to use Mastodon and Lemmy...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Mastodon will hopefully naturally grow as twitter continues to destroy itself. Lemmy might be a bit harder get people to stick with.

If they can find an instance that really fits them, or most of their communities are here, then it should be an easy transition. But if they're missing their favorites, it'll be tough to get them to stick with it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Back when Mastodon was more in the news I told various friend groups to jump on it. I wrote up guides for them too. They largely didn't, and some of them even got annoyed at me.

Nowadays I see they're still somewhat mostly using Twitter though some of them have started to slowly warm up to Bluesky. Sigh.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Seems like a really cool concept. Something I'd be curious about is if there are ways to encourage people to support the authors as well.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I've been reading the Honor Harrington book series from my local library system but I noticed them on sale in Amazon. The Kindle versions of the books are "DRM-Free at the request of the author". That right there convinced me to buy the books.

A way to "tip" the authors anonymously would be a great addition.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I'd love an implementation where under each book you would have the option to donate a custom amount to directly support the author and/or the library.