Literature

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BookWyrm vs. OpenLibrary (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 1 year ago by Schnaftator@lemmy.sdf.org to c/literature

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I believe there are some BookWyrm users here, that's why I'm trying to (mis)use this community as a support forum.

In the latest Fediverse rush I've created a BookWyrm account and imported my GoodReads data. Some of the books in my library are pretty niche, had to be imported from OpenLibrary and don't have a cover picture. So I made a cover photo for one of them and uploaded it to BookWyrm and OpenLibrary.

Now I'm wondering... Is book data entered into BookWyrm contributed back to OpenLibrary? Does anyone use OpenLibrary? OpenLibrary seems to offer pretty much what BookWyrm offers sans the federation. Still, it seems like a good and open project, and being hosted by archive.org and having been co-created by Aaron Swartz. Now I'm on the fence what to use. :-)

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[–] leraje@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If I'm referring people to a book I always use a link to its OpenLibrary entry. If I'm discussing a book, I do it on the Bookwyrm instance I'm on.

In short - use both :)

[–] Schnaftator@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago

At the moment I tend to view OpenLibrary as the canonical information source. Fair enough, then I have to answer the question for myself whether I actually need the discussion features that BookWyrm adds.

[–] bbbhltz 4 points 1 year ago

I am going to make a guess, based on using both platforms, that things entered into BookWyrm is not contributed back to OL.

Also, I didn't know that OL was a Swartz co-creation. Thanks for that info.

[–] GunnarRunnar 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm interested in this as well.

[–] bird 3 points 1 year ago

I just joined BookWyrm and imported my Goodreads data. I'm just getting back into reading, so I'm excited to try it out!

I'm currently reading Recursion by Blake Crouch. I like it a lot so far!

[–] lemillionsocks 2 points 1 year ago

I didnt know about either and am interested in both now.

[–] tcit 2 points 1 year ago

BookWyrm does not contribute back to OpenLibrary (it's an upstream source). If you want to contribute to book data, OL is the place. BW is for users.

BW also uses data from https://inventaire.io which is (almost entirely) based on Wikidata, which is nice as well.