The Preacher's Library

Well, this is going to be my last post via blogger. This is because I will be moving into Wordpress this week as I roll out the new and improved Preacher's Library. The new app will be significantly more appealing to the workflow (if you can call it that). The interface has been improved and it makes more use of the latest ajax capabilities (mainly from jQuery). It is also built on a more robust core of code so it should run much quicker and take our future customizations easier. In fact, after the rollout, I'll begin adding in some of the new features like the ability to change your book covers, delete a book, manage your notes, prepare citations from your notes, search your notes, and more. I'm excited. Hopefully it continues to help you all.

For those facing the warning from Google's badware intervention, this has been resolved. It was preventing the site from being used since it blocked all of the form submissions. Logging in and adding books was broken. Apparently, our server was hacked and some code was placed into the page. Fortunately, it did not hurt any users or the site itself. It was "apparent" badware and therefore, threw a warning.

The library has passed the 1400 mark. It was likely done before the change of the year.

We will be working on a new design in order to incorporate the new features of the site. Our hope is to draw the other ideal modules (previously mentioned as new sites) into this one site since there is reason and room. Therefore, I was hoping to purchase a new domain name and thereby, a new name for the application. Please send your ideas to me or post in comments below. The goal is to use something that implies "a place of study" or "the Bible student's desk."

With the drop of the economy, I have been purchasing less books than ever. I'm averaging only two per month right now (down from my 5+ per month). But, it appears that it is not affecting others. The Preacher's Library appears to be climbing about 100 books per month. In May we crossed 1300 books in the library. Keep them coming. I plan to revisit the site in a month or two in order enhance the interface and add some more social features (Lord willing).

I was adding a new book, Foundations of Grace by Steven Lawson, and noticed that The Preacher's Library is now 1200 books strong. I'm excited. I hope to revisit the application soon to improve and add some features and this really gets me motivated. Thanks for all of your cataloging. Keep it up.

As of this morning, we have tipped over the 900 mark. And now at mid-day we are on the tail of 950. I suspect that we will pass the 1,000 book mark before the end of this year. What does that mean? Well, considering that we really did not promoting or efforts in advertising and geared the site for only those invited ... and did not consider the site to get much traffic since it was a testing ground, I think that is pretty good.

We are often compared to LibraryThing.com and rightly so. I know that our number of books don't come close to theirs. But with respect to our goal - I think it is pretty good. The site has only been alive for less than a year.

Thanks for getting involved with it. We are receiving a lot of email questions and will spend sometime online answering them soon. Take care.