About the Internet Book List

Imagine a place where every book ever written is available at the click of a button...
Envision a place where You have the power to influence which books are read by others...
Picture a place where authors and readers can communicate with each other across the world...
Visualize a place where You can always find out what to read next...

...well, stop it – this is the best we can do, for now.

The Internet Book List (IBList) was a hobby project started by Patrik Roos in early 2003. Its purpose is to provide a comprehensive and easily accessible database of books, since Patrik considers the Book to be humanity's greatest creation.

In early 2004, the project was transitioned from Patrik Roos to Steven Jeffery.

Earlier projects by Patrik Rooss include TEXT-IMAGE.com and various odd services to provide information about local restaurants.

Big juicy thanks to Ilpo Ruotsalainen for help with the PHP and MySQL, and Henrik Hellerstedt for the original hardware.

Policy and ownership

IBList is not a commercial venture, nor a real legal entity in any sense. All the data on IBList has been entered by its users. We the creators of IBList, while giving it our best effort, do not guarantee the accuracy nor the quality of the information within the website. We do reserve the right to correct any errors we find within and remove or change any material we find abusive or otherwise unsuitable. We do not claim any ownership over the user-submitted data. Under no circumstances will user comments and reviews ever be sold or given out. Copies of the book, series, and author information will be released upon reguest in the near future. This will NOT include user submitted comments and reviews or user profiles.

The Explanation

Didn't you ever hear someone mention a book being good, and you wondered what the book was about? And maybe you'd run off and look up the book in a library and sniff it and caress the cover, then sit down and muse about what it's like to read?
   I didn't either. However, I would run off to my computer and try to look for the particular book, and browse around for hours in order to find the right one, with just the right kind of review or description. And then I'd sulk because I was unable to find out what other books that author had written in the same series, since it turned out to be part four.

In order to simplify that process, and introduce some much-needed idle browsing capabilities for books on the web, I decided to start the Internet Book List. I had looked around a bit, and tried to find something that provided this service already, preferrably with a forum on which I could ask people about books, but I didn't find one. Thus I made my own.
   Many people have asked me what the goal of the project is; what new features will it have; which users will it serve. It's a very difficult question to answer, and I'd like to share my vision on it.

I love books.
   With these words I don't mean I'm a bibliophile – I have no particular interest in lost editions of secret works – I simply love the idea of the Book. It fascinates me that Humanity has developed something as amazing as an item that basically holds entire worlds in it, which can only exist inside your mind. Stories are like that; they don't exist unless you read them, and imagine them. The book is a completely abstract object made to exist in the physical world. This is what I love about books.
   Non-fictional books have a great importance of transferring information from generation to generation, but I don't have the same fascination for it. I enjoy stories much more than fact, and I can't invest the same effort in something I don't love doing. Trying would only lead to a badly done job. Because of this, I have decided to let other people develop and maintain the non-fictional part of the Internet Book List, but I still want to keep it a single entity. This means non-fiction will be a big part of the website, but it will also take time – I need to find the right person to take care of it.

There seem to be many worried people out there who are afraid the Internet Book List will abuse the dedicated volunteer work it requires to grow, by selling out to a company which then profits on the work of others. I will not do this. The database will be freely distributed online. This will not happen now! The database is still a work in progress, needing optimization and further refinement before it gets released to the public. In the event that the project would crash and burn, the database will be distributed to those who want to continue where we left off. I do not claim any ownership to the information in the database, though the website itself does belong to me.

An important thing the visitors of this site must learn is patience. It takes time to build something great, and that is what I wish to do. Allow me to try.