BookShare

profile
book recommendations

Inspiration

We created BookShare to help readers discover more great books. Since a book is never defined by its popularity, personal comments are always helpful. We hope to construct a project that helps people with similar interests recommend books for each other and enjoy the reading experience together.

What it does

BookShare constructs an online database for all readers, collects their information and reading interests, and recommends the most suitable books for them.

How we built it

We primarily used Django, a high-level Python Web framework to build the website and administrative database, and Python to facilitate its information processing.

Challenges we ran into

Because our team members are unfamiliar with Django, it took us a while to comprehend its Model-view-template structure and combination with Python language. Yet both the intensive 18-hr time period and the help of other hacking fellows provoked us to learn Django quickly, and to finally realize our ideas with it.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are able to recommend books to people by determining how similar their interests, working industries, and majors are. We believe that this is a better way of finding books you love than browsing the popular ranking lists.

What we learned

Programming design with Python, use of Django web framework, principles of Model-view-template structure and building a group project with intensive teamwork.

What's next for BookShare

We will continue developing BookShare by letting users enter multiple keywords, subjects, industries, etc. They will also be able to recommend more than one book and give different scores for each book that they recommend. Ideally, they can provide feedback after they read each book. We’ll also implement a book model to provide the name, author, summary of the books.