BOOK’S MARKING

The System for Finding the Books based on Location Information

Takeru Yoshihara

Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, 5322 endo, Fujisawa, Kanagawa 252-8520, Japan

Michiaki Yasumura

Faculty of Enviromental Information, Keio University, 5322 endo, Fujisawa, Kanagawa 252-8520, Japan

Keywords: Books, Location tagging, Ubiquitous computing.

Abstract: The Availability and use of digital books has greatly increased in recent years, and eBook technologies now

allow books to be downloaded and read almost anywhere. While method of reading and experiencing books

are changing, method of finding books are relatively unchanged. Most people select books based on their

impression of the front cover seen in the library or bookstore, or on reviews found on the internet. In our

research we have attempted to enrich the process of finding and experiencing books by developing the

“Book’s Marking” system where books are linked to places. In this system, users (“editors” or “annotators”)

put information about books on a shared map. In this way information about locations can be linked to the

contents of books. For example, the place where the story is set, the area where the author was born, and the

experiences of other readers can all be linked together. Once books are linked to places other readers can

then find the books that refer to, or are associated with, places that they are interested in, or are visiting.

1 INTRODUCTION

During recent years, various kinds of devices for

reading digital books have appeared, and the

numbers of people using those devices has increased

rapidly. Schilit, Price, Golovchinsky, Tanaka and

Marshall(1999) showed that digital readers occupy

an important space between print and online media,

and they allow large number of books to be carried

around and read anywhere. Digital books can also

enhance text in a variety of ways, with hypermedia

links (e.g., to summary information about characters

in the books, or to places mentioned), and with new

types of embedded search and annotation within the

text. This creates the opportunity for new styles of

reading. However, while the way to read books has

been changing, the way to find books has yet to

change. People typically select books based on

traditional methods such as looking at book covers

in stores or reading reviews in newspapers and on

the internets. In this method, mistakes can be made

as people have to decide whether or not to get the

book based on limited information.

In addition to offering new ways to search for

books, online media also offer the possibility to

embed books more effectively within social and

geographical contexts. People may travel to

experience the worlds of a books characters or

author to experience the real atmosphere of places

they had previously only imagined. This style is

called ‘Contents tourism’(Okamoto, 2010), (Shimizu

and Kobayashi, 2006), (Masubuchi, 2010) In our

research we have sought to develop augmented

interactions with electronic books that will facilitate

search for books and contents tourism.

2 BOOK’S MARKING

People differ in terms of the places that have special

meaning for them

. For example, some people are

impressed by

beautiful scenery or historical legacy

when they travel, while others are attracted to

familiar locations and paths near their

homes

(Sonoda, 2002)

. Book’s Marking enables people to

for books that are related to places in diverse

ways.

The system enables users to find and

215

Yoshihara T. and Yasumura M..

BOOK’S MARKING - The System for Finding the Books based on Location Information.

DOI: 10.5220/0003382402150217

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Pervasive and Embedded Computing and Communication Systems (PECCS-2011), pages

215-217

ISBN: 978-989-8425-48-5

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

experience

books that are of interest to them based

not only on existing information such as pictures or

reviews, but also on

locations that are associated

with books in some way.

3 DESIGN OF THE SYSTEM

Book’s Marking is comprised of two kinds of Web

Application

involving either desktop computers or

mobile devices (Figure.1). Desktop computer users

can

attach information about books to places on a

shared map and

browse the locations that have been

tagged with books by other users.

The connection

between the books and the place is based on the

subjective view of the users who

make the tags.

When assigning tasks using the system, users also

comment on the tag, providing the reason why they

linked the book to each place. Other users can

browse the book tags assigned to locations and make

further comments in assocation with the tag.

Users with mobile devices can get access to book

tags at the curent location using a GPS equipped in

device. As people move around they can see which

books are linked to nearby locations.

Figure 1: System configuration diagram.

4 IMPLEMENTATION

The main system is built as a Web application which

works on the Google App Engine. The data about

books is referred from the Amazon Product

Advertising API, and the map data is collected from

Google Maps API. The system saves information

about books in the database with the GeoHash-code

converted from the latitude and longitude of the

place where the book information was tagged. This

information can then be output on the shared map or

mobile device as required.

5 USE CASE

In order to put the information about books on the

map, at first have to move to the web page named

”Marking” on Book’s Marking (Figure.2), and

search for the book data that they want by entering

keywords. Then select some book data and move to

the next page. On that page, users set the place to put

the information. They then enter the comments and

category of the books. After this procedure, the

information and comments appears as icons on the

map, and other users can browse them by clicking

icons(figure.3).

In the case of using the system from a mobile

device, users start up the application at a place they

are interested in. If book information has already

been stored at or near that place, users can get access

to that information based on their GPS location. For

example, if a user put the information about ”The

Sun Also Rises” (written by Ernest Hemingway) at

Pamplona (Spain), with the comment ”Here,

Pamplona provided the setting for Hemingway!!” as

a reason for the tag. Later, another user who visited

Pamplona and was intrigued by the place, could find

the associated information about ”The Sun Also

Rises” there using Book’s Marking(figure.4).

In addition, Book’s Marking has a function to

search for a place by consulting keywords such as

the title of the books, the name of author, and the

category of books. For example, a user who likes

”The Sun Also Rises” can get information about

locations that the book is linked to by searching with

keywords from the book title.

6 DISCUSSIONS

Book’s Marking is now on release on a trial basis.

To get some initial user feedback, we made a demo

of Book’s Marking at an exhibition on learning

applications that was held in Tokyo in 2010. In that

exhibition, we received a variety of opinions, with

some visitors using Book’s Marking after that event.

Most books which were put on the map are novels,

and they are normally put on a location either

connected to the story or to a place that is associated

with the author (e.g., place of birth or where the

PECCS 2011 - International Conference on Pervasive and Embedded Computing and Communication Systems

216

author lived while writing books). In addition, we

have observed a trend for different types of location

to be associated with different types of book. For

example, in Shinjuku City, a major hub within

Tokyo, Japan, a lot of dark stories about gangland

bloodletting and lives of the homeless were tagged.

On the other hand, In Jiyugaoka, a residential

communnity in Tokyo, most stories tended to be

happier, involving topics such as stories about

animals or discussion of cooking. Based on this

finding, the system will be adapted to allow better

visualization of data such as categories, authors, the

date of publication, etc. on maps We are currently

designing a set of icons that can meet this

requirement.

Figure 2: Top page of Book’s Marking.

Figure 3: Example of GUI.

7 CONCLUSIONS

Initial feedback from users indicates that Book’s

Marking functionality, linking books to places, is

useful. In addition, to the usages of the system

discussed in this paper, other applications of the

system may include using the system in tourism,

regional promotion, and social science. We believe

that tagging locations with books is a useful activity

that may lead to a variety of innovative applications

as the number of book tags and tagged locations

increases.

Figure 4: Example of GUI on mobile terminal.

REFERENCES

Schilit, B. N., Price, M. N., Golovchinsky, G., Tanaka, K.,

Marshall, C. C., 1999. The Reading Appliance

Revolution. Computer v.32 n.1 p.65-73

Okamoto, T., 2010. A Study on Contents and Tourists

Behavior: Construction of Contents-Tourism Study

Theory. Hokkaido University collections of Scholarly

and Academic Papers.

Shimizu, S. Kobayashi, H., 2006. The New way of

Revitalizing Community and Region, ‘TABI’ –

concious Process. Japan Institute of Tourism Research

Annual Conference2006.

Sonoda, M., 2002. Review of the research on attachment

to residential area. In Kyushu University Psychological

Research2002, Vol.3.

Kakoi, E. Yoshitake, T. Deguchi, C., 2003. A study on the

artist’s residential choice and their evaluation of

residential circumstances. In Collection of papers of

city planning No.38-3. City planning institute of Japan.

Masubuchi, T., 2010. Monogatari wo Tabisuru Hitobito -

Contents Tourism toha Nanika- [The people travelling

around story –What is contents tourism?-]. Sairyusha.

BOOK'S MARKING - The System for Finding the Books based on Location Information

217