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Last edited by Mek
December 3, 2008 | History
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Open Library Beta

Beta Site

Open Library is officially in beta! Our latest release includes some major improvements to the site architecture, API (?), and user interface (see our tour (?) for more information). However, there are still some issues that we are working
on. All of these are addressed as bug reports at launchpad.net, but since that forum tends to be at a highly detailed level, we are listing a few
of them here as bullet points for a broader audience.

  1. Data quality
    We have been working hard at scrubbing data. There are still some problems that need to be resolved. For instance, books and authors are sometimes not brought together because of differences in the input data. Our engineers are working hard to resolve these differences.

  2. Duplication

    Many books appear more than once in our database because they have been published multiple times. We will be bringing together all of the editions of these works in a future version of the database. (?)

  3. Browser differences

    We have experienced some difficulties with the rendering of Unicode in various browsers. Firefox on the Macintosh is a known problem.

  4. User uploads

    At present, we do not provide direct support for user uploads of books to Open Library. However, It is possible to upload a book and make it available to Open Library through the Internet Archive.
    You must upload the book according to the procedures at the Internet Archive site, (?) and then make your book available through Open Library by adding it as a new book. When you create a new record,
    list the Internet Archive (IA) identifier (e.g.. http://www.archive.org/stream/"ia_identifier") on the page to create a link between the two systems.

  5. Book Covers

    At present, only one cover per book can be uploaded to Open Library. Also, there are some usability issues with the present upload feature. These are being addressed by the development team.

  6. i18n Namespaces (?)

    We are still working out the protocol for internationalization of our content and user interface strings.
    This includes improvements to the user interface, and how these namespaces may be delegated.

  7. Author page

    The author page currently displays a truncated result set. We are developing new features for the author page that should resolve this issue.

  8. Full Text Search

    Full text search is still under development.

  9. User Changes

    Because of the beta nature of the site, there is still a possibility that changes applied by users could be lost as we make modifications.

  10. User features

    We are excited to announce that we have been working with the Berkeley iSchool on some new user features for the site. Stay tuned!


Please join our mailing list to discuss these issues, and anything related to Open Library!

History

February 28, 2018 Edited by Mek Edited without comment.
October 5, 2009 Edited by webchick Edited without comment.
March 4, 2009 Edited by webchick Edited without comment.
December 3, 2008 Edited by 69.209.53.234 reverting
May 5, 2008 Edited by webchick Edited without comment.