ISBN Visualization

One problem I see with annas archive is that there is a tendency towards older books. Now I do understand this for many reasons, but ... I recently read a book about steel construction in 1932, just for curiousity. I wanted to find a more recent one - did not even have to be, say, 1990 or 2000 or some such, but I simply could not find any (well, perhaps english speaking, but this is also a problem in that non-english languages are VERY underpresented in general).

I hope they can fix this in the long run. We need to preserve digital information on a much broader basis.

Re: ISBN Visualization

#5

Post by Cider9986 » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 9:42 PM UTC

There is a bounty for improving the visualization[0].

[0]: https://software.annas-archive.gl/AnnaArchivist/annas-archiv...

Re: ISBN Visualization

#6

Post by atulvi » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 9:45 PM UTC

Is there a similar one for IP?

Re: ISBN Visualization

#7

Post by flexagoon » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 9:46 PM UTC

shevy-java wrote: post #4

One problem I see with annas archive is that there is a tendency towards older books. Now I do understand this for many reasons, but ... I recently read a book about steel construction in 1932, just for curiousity. I wanted to find a more recent one - did not even have to be, say, 1990 or 2000 or some such, but I simply could not find any (well, perhaps english speaking, but this is also a problem in that non-english…

> I hope they can fix this in the long run.

There's nothing AA could "fix" here, this depends entirely on volunteers uploading the books. Your best way to help is to buy the books yourself, use a book scanning service (eg. 1dollarscan), and upload it to ZLib/LibGen.

You can also make a book request on ZLib, that way someone else will be able to do that for you if they want to

Re: ISBN Visualization

#8

Post by implode7569 » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 10:14 PM UTC

Feels like a market map for books. Very cool.

Re: ISBN Visualization

#9

Post by comrade1234 » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 10:32 PM UTC

I got burned buying a trilogy with a good rating on goodreads. I only read the first 1.5 books and didn't bother after that. It sucked and when I looked again later it had a more relevant rating. I think the initial score was gamed by bots.

So now I download from Anna's archive and if it's as good as I expected based on ratings then I pay for it, which I've done most recently for Children of Time.

Thankfully I live somewhere where I can download legally.

Re: ISBN Visualization

#10

Post by torben-friis » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 10:37 PM UTC

It's very strange to me how small Spanish is there.

Second language in the world by native speakers, piracy being effectively legal in Spain (non commercially), and so on.