diagramming books
Books as databases
06/11/10 11:00 Filed in: books
So
what would a relational database of a book look like
in diagram form? Somewhat similar. Like this:
The book is the anchor of this relational database much like the recipe box is in the recipe box example. Inside the book: chapters, a table of contents, maybe an index. Each chapter is made up of sentences (at least sentences…maybe pictures, too!) and each sentence is made up of words.
What is this "maybe an index" bit?
Here's a bit more from Chris Kubica at Publishing Perspectives:
Writing/building a book-as-database from the start requires thinking about how the contents of a book can later be searched, shared, aggregated, re-organized, re-presented, re-purposed and indexed.
However, the interface for readers and even for the author need not be complex or extra-technical in the slightest. A writer could write the book the “old fashioned way”, using a word processor and then upload the manuscript to be “processed” into database format by the publishing platform (more on platforms later). Or a writer could simply write rightin a Web browser while the platform automatically saves the work regularly into book-as-database format.
The book is the anchor of this relational database much like the recipe box is in the recipe box example. Inside the book: chapters, a table of contents, maybe an index. Each chapter is made up of sentences (at least sentences…maybe pictures, too!) and each sentence is made up of words.
What is this "maybe an index" bit?
Here's a bit more from Chris Kubica at Publishing Perspectives:
Writing/building a book-as-database from the start requires thinking about how the contents of a book can later be searched, shared, aggregated, re-organized, re-presented, re-purposed and indexed.
However, the interface for readers and even for the author need not be complex or extra-technical in the slightest. A writer could write the book the “old fashioned way”, using a word processor and then upload the manuscript to be “processed” into database format by the publishing platform (more on platforms later). Or a writer could simply write rightin a Web browser while the platform automatically saves the work regularly into book-as-database format.