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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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

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753497#Comment_753497

[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

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753507#Comment_753507

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

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753509#Comment_753509

Yes! Please share! [:D]

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753511#Comment_753511

This does look promising. I really don't understand why this feature is not currently available but, like many things, I guess I just don't understand the fuller picture.

Sarel Slabbert

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753516#Comment_753516

Yes, please make this available. Even if it is "clunky" it is way better than nothing.

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

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753530#Comment_753530

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

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753533#Comment_753533

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)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753535#Comment_753535

Or this bundle as well...

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

Matthew

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753544#Comment_753544

I too would be interested in something like this.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753569#Comment_753569

OK, it's online at www.mylogoslibrary.com. Consider it to be in beta, and I can't make any guarantees about accuracy. It should be self-explanatory, but if not, please ask.

In addition to showing you which resources you don't own, it's quite handy for two other features:

You can browse resources by author/publisher and also by subject. So, you could see, for example, all the commentaries on 1 Peter (and find out which ones you don't yet own).
You can also see if individual resources are compatible with older versions of Logos/Libronix.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753579#Comment_753579

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

Logos are already able to do this, they just haven't managed to integrate it into the website yet or made it public. Standalone is (relatively) easy [:)].

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).

It aggregates the data, so it doesn't waste space. You can think of it as a MySQL database that merges everyone's catalog.db into one database, and then just stores a list of which resource IDs are owned by which people. Each new user will only add about 150kb for every 1,000 resources they own.

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

Once you've uploaded your file, you'll be able to access the Baker Academic Biblical Studies bundle at this URL: http://www.mylogoslibrary.com/newtome.php?product_page=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.logos.com%2Fproduct%2F43743%2Fbaker-academic-biblical-studies-bundle

Or this bundle as well...
https://vyrso.com/bakerbundle

It won't support Vyrso, I'm sorry. They don't publish resource IDs on the Vyrso website, and without those IDs I'm sunk.

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753579#Comment_753579

Funny this popped up today, I Just tried it because I was interested in what resources I didn't have in a couple of the expansion collections! It seemed to work perfectly!

A couple of minor comments:

1. I was not sure it was finished when I uploaded my db file. I saw the progress bar was finished, but I interpreted that to mean upload was done, and I was not sure if it was now processing something or not. I took a chance and clicked on the Home page and it worked. It might be a little clearer if it either said it was finished, or jumped me to the home page.

2. Most of the icons had the not found or not available symbol instead of an icon.

3. What I suspect is some of the resource I do not own in the expansion collections are not out yet. WOuld there be an easy way to show in the report whether the resources are out yet or not?

Very nice tool Mark, thanks for sharing!

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753584#Comment_753584

One other thing - it said I have 26,128 resources; Library in Verbum says I have 22,361, which includes 298 personal books and 286 Vyrso books. COuld there be that many internal resources in Verbum (I count only 29 datasets), or is there old/extraneous stuff in there?

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753584#Comment_753584

1. I was not sure it was finished when I uploaded my db file. I saw the progress bar was finished, but I interpreted that to mean upload was done, and I was not sure if it was now processing something or not. I took a chance and clicked on the Home page and it worked. It might be a little clearer if it either said it was finished, or jumped me to the home page.

There is a short processing time after upload (which will continue in the background even if you clicked away). It should have given you a message when it had finished processing. I have added a note to say that it might appear to 'stick' after the upload.

Most of the icons had the not found or not available symbol instead of an icon.

Which icons?

What I suspect is some of the resource I do not own in the expansion collections are not out yet. WOuld there be an easy way to show in the report whether the resources are out yet or not?

There's no indication of the Master Expansion pack product page that some resources aren't yet available. Is there something missing from my database that you were expecting?

One other thing - it said I have 26,128 resources; Library in Verbum says I have 22,361, which includes 298 personal books and 286 Vyrso books. COuld there be that many internal resources in Verbum (I count only 29 datasets), or is there old/extraneous stuff in there?

The 26,128 figure is the total number of distinct resources that the website knows about. Your figure should be shown on the "Don Awalt" tab. That figure will exclude PBs, but will include datasets.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753584#Comment_753584

What I suspect is some of the resource I do not own in the expansion collections are not out yet. WOuld there be an easy way to show in the report whether the resources are out yet or not?

I've looked at this again, and think I may have found an example in the Sermon Finder collection. The first resource may well not be out yet. But there's no way I can be certain about that - although the lack of a cover is certainly a hint in that direction!

SineNomine

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753588#Comment_753588

Thank you Mark! Maybe this will inspire Faithlife to do something.

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753587#Comment_753587

The icons I was talking about were the resource icons, which appear in the report to the left of the name:

I am pretty sure some of the resources in the Expansion pack are not yet out. I am a little concerned that I will pay the dynamic price for the package and not get anything new because the resources are not yet available. I am almost positive I checked this with customer service a little while ago. I don't know if you can flag that or not some how, but that is why I was asking.

Understand on the resource count, I was looking at the wrong number. It says I have 22,187. Add 298 PBs, that makes 22,485. I have 22,361 resources. I guess there are some hidden datasets that are not part of what is showing in the library with the 29 that do show?

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753579#Comment_753579

OK, it's online at www.mylogoslibrary.com.

Thanks Mark. It works like a charm. Quite cool to experiment with.

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753629#Comment_753629

Hi Mark, I did the research and here is what I found:

Sermon Finder Collection - the tool reported I was missing 15 resource, 13 have not been released yet.

Systematic Theologies Collection - it reported I am missing 11 resources, none of which have been released yet.

IMHO it's a bit deceitful on the Logos web site to imply these collections could be purchased on an attractive dynamic pricing price, yet what you pay for won't be out for awhile and they don't tell you, but that's a topic for another thread that I won't initiate :-)

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753625#Comment_753625

The icons I was talking about were the resource icons, which appear in the report to the left of the name:

I am pretty sure some of the resources in the Expansion pack are not yet out. I am a little concerned that I will pay the dynamic price for the package and not get anything new because the resources are not yet available. I am almost positive I checked this with customer service a little while ago. I don't know if you can flag that or not some how, but that is why I was asking.

I think the cover images are missing in this case because the resources aren't yet out. I may be able to guess at this and indicate it on the site. If you click through on one of those resources, you should find that only a small amount of information is available, and the preview gives a 404 error. Those are very good signs that the resource isn't available yet.

<edit>I've added an asterisk in front of titles that I don't think have been released yet. I doubt it's foolproof, but it should be fairly accurate.</edit>

Understand on the resource count, I was looking at the wrong number. It says I have 22,187. Add 298 PBs, that makes 22,485. I have 22,361 resources. I guess there are some hidden datasets that are not part of what is showing in the library with the 29 that do show?

That's correct. I'm counting datasets as resources, which is what Logos' "New to Me" on base packages does.

Erwin Stull, Sr.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753579#Comment_753579

OK, it's online at www.mylogoslibrary.com.

Thanks Mark; It works good.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753629#Comment_753629

Update: I've added a series page, so you can now browse by series. There's a sorting bug, but apart from that it should be helpful, I think.

Bruce Roth

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753648#Comment_753648

Thanks Mark,

As usual your tools are of great benefit. I think Logos should give you a percentage of purchases that folks add to their libraries as they discover from your tool the missing volumes.

Beloved Amodeo

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753579#Comment_753579

OK, it's online at www.mylogoslibrary.com. Consider it to be in beta, and I can't make any guarantees about accuracy. It should be self-explanatory, but if not, please ask.

In addition to showing you which resources you don't own, it's quite handy for two other features:

You can browse resources by author/publisher and also by subject. So, you could see, for example, all the commentaries on 1 Peter (and find out which ones you don't yet own).

You can also see if individual resources are compatible with older versions of Logos/Libronix.

Mark,

Your labor is appreciated! I have run into some problems. I'm not sure you will be able to address these issues, but here you go. I own the entire set of IVP Dictionary Series your program was able to identify that the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels 2nd ed is new to me. What it didn't tell me is that I own the 1st ed printed 1992. Is there a way you could get the program to recognize the older edition in its report?

Secondly, I own NICOT/NT save one resource which I can ferret out with a little work, but your program makes me lazy and I would like it to identify which resource is new to me as it is your program does not recognize any of the volumes I already own. Is there a way to remedy this?

Thanks a ton

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...

abondservant

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753587#Comment_753587

love this!

Excellent excellent tool.

One oddity is that it shows there are ~1200 issues of themelios when I am relatively certain there are only 108. Is there a bug going on there? or is it because of adjustments for typos and some people don't update? Or more likely I am misunderstanding the "copies" field.

Also, New to Me doesn't seem to work in Firefox.

William Gabriel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753678#Comment_753678

love this!

Excellent excellent tool.

[*][*][*][*][*]

Randy W. Sims

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753678#Comment_753678

One oddity is that it shows there are ~1200 issues of themelios when I am relatively certain there are only 108. Is there a bug going on there?

All the counts are counts of resources across all uploaded libraries. 118 Themelios resources in my library + 118 in your library, etc. across all 11 uploaded libraries. One of the 11 users probably hasn't got the latest issue is likely the reason there aren't 11 x 118 = 1,298.

abondservant

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753682#Comment_753682

Yeah - that makes sense. I thought at first blush there was a relation between the top and bottom of the pages. But it seems there isn't. Thanks!

Randy W. Sims

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753670#Comment_753670

Secondly, I own NICOT/NT save one resource which I can ferret out with a little work, but your program makes me lazy and I would like it to identify which resource is new to me as it is your program does not recognize any of the volumes I already own. Is there a way to remedy this?

It doesn't work on the "New to me" tab, but you can sorta find it through the very useful Series tab: Series: New International Commentary on the Old and New Testament. The catch is that it is not equivalent to the collection as sold. It simply shows all resources that use that series name, including older, retired editions.

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.

Sarel Slabbert

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753700#Comment_753700

Thanks Mark,

This tool is brilliant. I like it a lot!!!!

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753670#Comment_753670

Your labor is appreciated! I have run into some problems. I'm not sure you will be able to address these issues, but here you go. I own the entire set of IVP Dictionary Series your program was able to identify that the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels 2nd ed is new to me. What it didn't tell me is that I own the 1st ed printed 1992. Is there a way you could get the program to recognize the older edition in its report?

I can't do anything about that, I'm sorry. As far as Logos is concerned they're two entirely different resources.

Secondly, I own NICOT/NT save one resource which I can ferret out with a little work, but your program makes me lazy and I would like it to identify which resource is new to me as it is your program does not recognize any of the volumes I already own. Is there a way to remedy this?

That shouldn't have happened. For some reason the product pages for the NICOT/NT haven't been recognised properly. I'll look into this.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753682#Comment_753682

One oddity is that it shows there are ~1200 issues of themelios when I am relatively certain there are only 108. Is there a bug going on there?

All the counts are counts of resources across all uploaded libraries. 118 Themelios resources in my library + 118 in your library, etc. across all 11 uploaded libraries. One of the 11 users probably hasn't got the latest issue is likely the reason there aren't 11 x 118 = 1,298.

I'll try and make this a bit clearer, but Randy's explanation is correct.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753671#Comment_753671

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

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753701#Comment_753701

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

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753701#Comment_753701

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

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753813#Comment_753813

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)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753841#Comment_753841

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

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753843#Comment_753843

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

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753849#Comment_753849

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

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753854#Comment_753854

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

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/753913#Comment_753913

Mark - what about for those serving in sensitive contexts?