Bruji

Hello, I'm new to this program but so far I'm thoroughly impressed. I have just taken responsibility for a club library. My question is, what would be the easiest way to e-mail the library to the members. I tried converting to PDF but I think I'm only sending one page at a time and most of the members are PC users. Also what would be a good way to offer online access to the membership to the catalog. I have a personal/business website, but wonder if something like Google Docs would be a better universal access solution and what kind of form would be the best.

Thanks, Matt

Hi Matt,

Glad to hear that you are enjoying Bookpedia.

For email I do think PDF is the way to go. It will ensure that everybody sees the same formatting (including PC users). The print templates, under the print option are a good bet for something simple and concise. Otherwise the HTML export options can also be printed after being exported and turned into PDFs. With the HTML export be sure to set the export option to number of movies per page and "99999" as the number. Since you don't want to group the movies on separate pages when creating a single PDF. Depending on the number of details you want to send your members, you might want to tweak some of the included templates. For example the listing template of "White" would be my personal choice as I think black on white is easy to read and has only the basics (title, author and rating).

For web I would use "Fancy" as it allows for sorting and searching by your members, a nice feature with large libraries. Otherwise, I would use one of the templates with grouping by word and sort the author column before exporting so that the index is created by author. Google Docs is another options but I would use simpler text formats from the "text" export option for that.

A Mac only idea is with Drop Box or other download service is to put up a .bookpedia file or a copy of the Bookpedia data folder. This way members with Macs could browse the library using the free demo version of Bookpedia and use cover flow, cover art, smart collection, searches and a wish list to browse and track what they would like to borrow (the demo version only disallows editing of large collections).

Conor,
Thanks for your quick and through answer. With your tips I was able to e-mail a nice PDF to the group. Our library (what I have catalogued so far) looks much better on screen than in the tote boxes we haul it in to each meeting. Also Google Docs took the PDF fine.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid= ... y=CPPprpkI
This is a group of blacksmiths, most are more comfortable using a 100 pound power hammer than a keyboard. I don't really need it in a form that they can monkey with. Just wanted the members to be able to browse. I think I'm the only one of 30 or so using a mac so there's no point in posting in Mac only form but that would be a nice idea if more could benefit.

I think the e-mail for overdue is a great feature. Is there a way I could use it to send a reminder notice a few days before each meeting?

Matt

Matt wrote:I think the e-mail for overdue is a great feature. Is there a way I could use it to send a reminder notice a few days before each meeting?

The only built-in trigger for the overdue message is the over due date, so it would be impossible to set it to send a reminder to members before the meeting without fudging the overdue date, but thank you for the feedback that such a feature would be useful to you.

Very nice setup for your members, and quite an interesting field that of Metallurgy.

Thanks Again Conor,
At least I know wasn't missing an easy way to do it. I wanted to adapt the e-mail buyer note to send a notice since we will never be selling any books. I can do it manually with reg. e-mail. I just like it when the computer works for me. If there were a way to set a trigger for three days before every second Sunday of each month it would be super cool.

Since you want to email only those with borrowed books, you could adapt the text of the email in the preferences (to mention it's a reminder to bring it to the meeting and that it's not actually overdue) and then select all the books in borrowed and use the "Email borrower" command. This will open a message for each member and you must then press the send button. However, you could AppleScript the entire process and set it to run via iCal. It might require "enable access for assistive deices" to be on in System Preference to script some of the interface items like hitting the send button and "Email Borrower" command.