New to me

I got fed up waiting for Logos to code a "New to me" feature on the website — so I made this. It's creaky at the moment, but it works well enough for me. Is it worth me putting the effort in to make it publicly accessible? How useful would you find it?

(It works by asking me to upload my Logos library file, which is then stored on the server to save me time in the future. Then I copy/paste the URL of a Logos product page. The site scrapes the page to find out which resources are included in the product, compares them with my library, and produces a page like this.)

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Comments

Lynden O. Williams

Interesting Mark. Could be very helpful in the topical bundles. Which server is the file stored on?

Kevin A Lewis

Hi Mark sounds very interesting - perhaps we could progressively replace Faithlife's entire decision making staff - LOL

not serious by the way!

Shalom

Erwin Stull, Sr.

I think this is great, Mark. Doing these things appear to be truly your gift. [:)]

I would find it useful, as I often run into the issue that this is designed to address.

Thanks

Jesse Blevins

[Y]

Looks interesting.

Could Logos take what you did and possibly implement it in a much larger way to give this feature to everyone?

Frank Sauer

Looks excellent Mark! It's a shame FL still hasn't added a comprehensive and accurate "new to me" that covers all products and packages. Hopefully they will glean from your effort.

Cynthia Tucker

Yes! Please share! [:D]

I like the idea. For the life of me, I can't figure out why Logos doesn't get this done. They have missed some serious $$$ on past purchases because I don't have the time nor inclination to see what's new to me in new purchases.

abondservant

I would find it VERY useful. From a pragmatic perspective unless you're self hosted or have near infinite server space, you might want to code it so that people can use a drop box link, or something along those lines this way the library file lives on our computers without cluttering up yours. It would be able to persist this way, as long as no one removes the file from their dropbox (or whichever service).

William Gabriel

That's fantastic! Would love for it to be more widely available.

I was toying with making a chrome plugin that cross referenced with biblia.com, but I've held off because I guessed it would be fragile and slow. Thanks for showing us the possibilities. I've been wondering what's new to me in https://www.logos.com/product/43743/baker-academic-biblical-studies-bundle

abondservant

Or this bundle as well...
https://vyrso.com/bakerbundle?utm_source=blog.vyrso.com&utm_medium=blog&utm_content=save674withvyrsosexclusivenewbundle&utm_campaign=promo-vyrsobakerbundle2015

JT (alabama24)

Or this bundle as well...

you need to add a space to make that hyperlink active.

Matthew

I too would be interested in something like this.

Randy W. Sims

Very well done! Thanks! Works great. Looks great.

Love the detail information like Last Updated/update history (version of Logos required), etc. and the links to open in Logos or the website. The amount of info and presentation make me wish for a search. And/or if feasible, to add the first letter navigation that's on most of the tabs to the All Resources tab? I think I'm wandering a bit beyond your intended usage.

I love the way everything is interlinked. Pull up a resource, click on author to find books by that author, etc. Same with subjects, publishers, etc. Everything is linked--just like a library should be. I LOVE this! Why doesn't Logos do this yet?!?!

What is the "Num Copies" field on the Resources tab? If it's number of times that resource is counted amoung all uploaded libraries, I'm curious why it is 0 fairly often? Would love to sort on that field to see popular resources.

Love stats. Logos makes it bit hard to get meaningful stats because collections skew the results in almost all counts (using % read stat might get somewhat around that though that's not avail and much beyond the scope), but I like what you've provided here. Great stuff.

Thanks for your work on this. Excellent tool. Still exploring...

Phil Gons (Logos)

We actually have this feature in the works for a big promotion we're planning for September. The plan is to role this out initially across all collection product pages included in the sale.

Mark Barnes

The amount of info and presentation make me wish for a search.

I'd like a search too, but search is hard get right. I'm not saying 'no', but it's probably unlikely.

And/or if feasible, to add the first letter navigation that's on most of the tabs to the All Resources tab? I think I'm wandering a bit beyond your intended usage.

The reason I didn't do this is that there are probably too many resources. Even on average there would be more than 1,000 resources per page (26,500 resources on 26 pages), and of course in practice there's be only a handful of 'Z's, but several thousands 'T's and 'N's, etc. I might change it, but again, it's unlikely, sorry.

I love the way everything is interlinked. Pull up a resource, click on author to find books by that author, etc. Same with subjects, publishers, etc. Everything is linked--just like a library should be. I LOVE this! Why doesn't Logos do this yet?!?!

There's a fundamental difference between my site and Logos'. Logos' site deals with products, my site deals with resources. The relationship between products and resources is complex.

A shop would be product-centric. A library (or library catalogue) would be resource-centric. The problem is that we want both!

I think that the Logos product range is big enough now to need to be able to make that distinction, and there have been small moves to adding resource information to the web site (if there hadn't been, I couldn't have produced my site). But it would be a very fundamental and significant change if the Logos website allowed us to be resource-centric, not just product-centric.

What is the "Num Copies" field on the Resources tab? If it's number of times that resource is counted amoung all uploaded libraries, I'm curious why it is 0 fairly often? Would love to sort on that field to see popular resources.

I've actually removed that column to make room for series/subject, which I think is more useful. But it is an interesting stat and it still shows up on the resource page. If it's 0 it means that someone has run a "new to me" report that has discovered resources that nobody owns. (There are also resources the site doesn't know about yet, too.)

Love stats.

Me too. An early alpha of the site included user ratings and tags, etc. (either community ratings or the user rating), but it wasn't practical to continue with that, unfortunately. But if Logos did something similar, they'd have a wealth of information that I don't have access to.

Mark Barnes

We actually have this feature in the works for a big promotion we're planning for September. The plan is to role this out initially across all collection product pages included in the sale.

That's good to hear.

Bruce Dunning

We actually have this feature in the works for a big promotion we're planning for September. The plan is to role this out initially across all collection product pages included in the sale.

Great news! [Y]

abondservant

Might be interesting to have a way to export this into goodreads...

Claude Brown Jr

Would be great as right now I am a little concerned. My library on my Qosmio says that I have 4949 in All resources. My Dell Inspiron says that I 4,809 titles in All Resources. My Logos upgrade page says that I have 6736 resources. I talked with Customer support and they said that the difference on computers was probably personal books. I was also told that "resources" datasets and features don't show in the library. I have 176 personal books on my Qosmio, all of which show up on my Dell Inspiron even though I can not open them (sigh). The difference between the two computers is 140 titles. That alone is scary, but even more scary is that depending upon which computer I am working with the difference between My Logos page and the Qosmio is 1827 datasets and resources. All that customer service could tell me is that yes I have more than 1000 resources outside of books. Given that Logos has "resources" that I can not access unless I am connected to the internet, I would really like to know what I do own. Even in what they offer in the upgrade they refer to 62 new resources which turn out to be all books as I have all of the datasets, interactive media, media collections offered by Logos. I would really like to know why the difference between computers and what Logos says I "own".

JT (alabama24)

My library on my Qosmio says that I have 4949 in All resources. My Dell Inspiron says that I 4,809 titles in All Resources. My Logos upgrade page says that I have 6736 resources. I talked with Customer support and they said that the difference on computers was probably personal books. I was also told that "resources" datasets and features don't show in the library. I have 176 personal books on my Qosmio, all of which show up on my Dell Inspiron even though I can not open them (sigh). The difference between the two computers is 140 titles.

Some thoughts:

Personal books don't sync unless you tell them to, but the metadata does (title, author, etc.).
The count of resources in your library will not include many "data sets." For example: The reverse interlinear for the ESV is bundled with the ESV text itself... You don't open the RI from the library, you open it from the ESV text.
Have you tried running the commands "update now" and/or "update resources"?

I would really like to know why the difference between computers and what Logos says I "own".

This is an interesting question, and pops up somewhat frequently. It is, however, a topic for another thread. If you are still concerned about it, please create a new thread.

Claude Brown Jr

Actually the tool provided did it for me as I was able to see that the resources "missing" were the 1374 Perseus Digital Library volumes that are hidden in my library by my choice.

Claude Brown Jr

Thank you thank you thank you. This tool is awesome just what I needed.

Sarel Slabbert

Hi Mark,

I really enjoy this tool. I have spend quite some time browsing different collections and bundles and I have identified a few that is now on my wishlist. Thanks. I was just wondering (due to my own limited knowledge): how safe is it to upload our data files to a server? Is it anonymous? Are any personal details uploaded?

Mark Barnes

I really enjoy this tool. I have spend quite some time browsing different collections and bundles and I have identified a few that is now on my wishlist. Thanks. I was just wondering (due to my own limited knowledge): how safe is it to upload our data files to a server? Is it anonymous? Are any personal details uploaded?

The file that you upload to the server contains:

A list of resources that you've hidden.
A list of resources that you have in your library
The date/time each resource was updated.

When you upload the file, I copy (1) and (2) into my own database, then delete your file. I ignore the information in (3). You can erase your data at any time, at which point it is fully removed from my database.

The file does contain the titles of personal books (but not the contents). However, I ignore these, so no information is stored about personal books on the server. It contains no other personal information, not even custom titles/series/tags/ratings. You do, of course, provide your name/email address when you register (although there's nothing stopping you providing fake details).

If the site was hacked (which I'm confident it won't be), the worst that the hackers could know would be your email address (if you've provided a real one), and a list of Logos resources you've owned/hidden.

abondservant

Mark - what about for those serving in sensitive contexts?

Mark Barnes

And/or if feasible, to add the first letter navigation that's on most of the tabs to the All Resources tab? I think I'm wandering a bit beyond your intended usage.

I relented on this, and have made the change. It's rather unwieldy, to say the least, but at least you can find resources by name, now.

Don Awalt

I have had a couple other opportunities to use your site Mark as other dynamic pricing products have popped up. I am getting the hang of it and this is really a very valuable and useful resource. Thanks again for providing it to us!

James Taylor

The file that you upload to the server

After I find the resource Manager file and double click, the window disappears but nothing further happens. It still shows the "upload your library" page and when I check the resources tab, it shows I own 0 resources. Thanks for the help, cant wait to use this

Randy W. Sims

And/or if feasible, to add the first letter navigation that's on most of the tabs to the All Resources tab? I think I'm wandering a bit beyond your intended usage.

I relented on this, and have made the change. It's rather unwieldy, to say the least, but at least you can find resources by name, now.

Thank you. I see what you mean by unwieldy: some of those pages are quite large. The resources names that start with articles (a,an,the) especially make the [a] and [t] pages huge. It's extremely helpful for locating a specific resource, but I do hope it's not too tough on your server.

BTW, I notice the traits on Home, aren't linking. I thought those were working at one point, but I don't remember if I remember correctly.

Matthew Charlesworth SJ

Dear Mark,

I tried accessing the site a few days ago, but today when I tried there was a problem... the page links to http://www.mylogoslibrary.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi - is this being discontinued?

Regards

Matthew

SineNomine

It's no longer needed. Faithlife has added equivalent functionality to the bottom of every single product page on Logos.com.

Matthew C Jones

Faithlife has added equivalent functionality to the bottom of every single product page on Logos.com.

Not "every single product"... For example: https://www.logos.com/product/122907/messianic-jewish-publishers-library-expansion-bundle

Matt Hamrick

That's still in prepub so your example doesn't work.