Show HN: TheLibraryMap – 100k Books in a Picture
thelibrarymap.com
thelibrarymap.com
The site is quite self-explanatory, a large interactive map with more than 100,000 books placed and colored by their similarity. Right now, it's completely based on an algorithm, and things like being written by the same author do not directly affect position or color.
Probably the most interesting feature, apart from the map, is that when clicking on a book similar books will be highlighted based on that. However, there are other features like the ability to create your own lists.
Any feedback will be appreciated. Thank you!
What do you take into account when computing the similarly of two books? Do you use metadata (genre, author, etc.) or something else? Note that I'm more interested in the data that is used rather than in the methodology.
Some sites will show you "other users also saw..." information. This is a very raw form of similarity, but a good similarity score can be computed from that data. There is no metadata involved at all right now.
What do you mean about having a key?
> a way to jump to a genre or theme
Yes! That's a good idea!
I'm also thinking about personalized visualizations based on your favorite books, maybe this could make it more shareable on social networks in order to get traction.
When I first looked at the page I wondered if the colors represented anything specific (fiction, drama, money, etc)
> I'm also thinking about personalized visualizations based on your favorite books, maybe this could make it more shareable on social networks in order to get traction.
Yeah it seems like you could generate quite a nice reading list. The first thing I did was search a few of the books on my shelf and see what was similar. Its a really nice way to explore books.
Apologies as I don't understand the technicalities behind this but I feel this system would apply well to a Spotify / YouTube browser. It would help you explore without their algorithms putting you in a filter bubble.
Best of luck!