Aplt1.com - a new unofficial LibriVox catalog

[ScottLawton]

I'm a huge fan of LibriVox books, but the catalog has always felt rather awkward to me. I like to have lots of information at my fingertips when I go hunt for new books to download. So, here's the first release of an alternative catalog. It checks for new books automatically, so should never (?!?) be more than an hour behind LibriVox.org.

http://aplt1.com/ - then click Search

Features include:

• show solo reader names in the result list, helping listeners find their favorites
• highlight dramatic readings with a distinctive icon
• display the number of readers for group projects
• show new author & reader stats in several places, emphasizing depth of content
• forum name appears with reader name
• series name and genre included in the result list
• important books are in the main result not buried 1 level deep behind a series/group link
• the result list is focused on books not sections
• language menu on the search form shows count of books for each language
• search is more accurate (e.g. 'road' doesn't match 'abroad')
• layout optimized for mobile
• book detail page reorganized as an extension of the result list, putting the most useful information up front

I have my own wish list of additional features, but I'm completely open to suggestions.

Scott

[ekzemplaro]

Hello Scott san,

Good job. It works fine for me.

I'm completely open to suggestions.

I suggest to add 'Any' for language selction.
Several authos are in plural languages, because of translation.

Choice of catalog is a good idea like choice of voice.

Cheers,
Masa

[ScottLawton]

I suggest to add 'Any' for language

Select the '-' ... though I will consider adding a text label.

Choice of catalog is a good idea like choice of voice.

I can tell that you put lots of time and thought into your catalog too.

Scott

[ekzemplaro]

Hello Scott san,

Select the '-' ... though I will consider adding a text label.

I see. It works fine.

Here I just mention another Web catalog system.
https://karikarito.com/retrolv/

Maybe there're more.

Cheers,
Masa

[ZamesCurran]

Not to presume to tell you what to to with your work, but, considering the nature of Librivox, it would be nice if you open-sourced the code.

[ScottLawton]

Not to presume to tell you what to to with your work, but, considering the nature of Librivox, it would be nice if you open-sourced the code.

I understand the sentiment, and in fact have open sourced code in the past (e.g. https://code.google.com/p/blogmaker/). The main LibriVox catalog is already on GitHub (https://github.com/LibriVox). Several alternate LibriVox catalogs are open source -- and several aren't. Mine will remain the latter, in part because the underlying framework is useful far beyond LV.

The Aplt1 website and iOS app are both free and currently without ads or any other revenue. To the extent some of the features help listeners to more easily find LV books they like and to have a smoother listening experience, that's where I've tried to add value to the community. (Well, that and finding/reporting lots of little data quality issues with the catalog.)

[ekzemplaro]

Hello James san,

Not to presume to tell you what to to with your work, but, considering the nature of Librivox, it would be nice if you open-sourced the code.

The code and data for the alternative catalog I wrote are at GitHub. As data is available, the catalog can be run on your machine. I'm happy to give an advice how to make it run.

Cheers,
Masa

[kayray]

Hey that is a slick catalog! Thanks, Scott :)

I wonder if it would be useful to have language selection links at the top of a reader's page, near the dramatic/solo/group links.

E.g. I have read in English, Old English, and German, so it might be neat if people could filter by language on my page.

Also, oddly, this book seems to be unfindable: https://librivox.org/alices-abenteuer-im-wunderland-von-lewis-carroll/

I searched by abenteuer, wunderland, and carroll.

[ScottLawton]

Hey that is a slick catalog! Thanks, Scott

Glad you like it! You should be able to browse the site from any mobile Web browser, click on the RSS link and get the book in your existing audiobook player (since my iOS app lacks a sleep timer & chapter downloads).

I wonder if it would be useful to have language selection links at the top of a reader's page, near the dramatic/solo/group links.

Very useful, and already on the list -- though I just bumped it up.

[kayray]

Hmm, you don't list individual chapters? For instance, here:
http://aplt1.com/book/9574

It would be nice to be able to see the names of the stories and who read each one.

[ScottLawton]

Hmm, you don't list individual chapters? For instance, here:
http://aplt1.com/book/9574

It would be nice to be able to see the names of the stories and who read each one.

Yes, that's a glaring hole. It's always difficult to decide where to draw the line between shipping a product sooner but incomplete, vs. later with more features. I generally embrace the following:

"If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late."
- Reid Hoffman

Seeing the chapter titles before downloading isn't vital for ordinary fiction ... and the reader name by chapter isn't relevant for solo & dramatic. So, Aplt1.com currently has a bias for those subsets of LibriVox. Future releases will get better -- prioritized by requests! So, thanks for the feedback.

...
Edit: my pages link to the LibriVox detail page, so the full list of sections & readers is only 1 click away.

Granted, the link is at the bottom of the page (attached to the small LibriVox logo) so not at all obvious.

[ScottLawton]

Hmm, you don't list individual chapters?

OK, I added that as a separate page, with a summary of readers at the top, for example:
http://aplt1.com/chapters/52
http://aplt1.com/chapters/2457

I made a few other changes, e.g. the result list now includes the copyright year (if known), language & LV release date.

The site is still 'mobile first' but also looks better on tablet & laptop/desktop-size.