I like reading books and often maintain a stack of unread books in my book shelf. Some of these books are borrowed from my local library. Some of them are bought from online book stores. The rate at which I pull from the unread stack varies and depends on the subject matter and the amount of reading time that I can spare. I have a list of books that I want to read. Among them there are some which I want to buy for myself. Also among them are some which I want to only rent from a library. I call these as my buy-list and my rent-list respectively. As I complete a stack of unread books, I go online and look for the availability of books in my library and on the online bookstore. Needless to say this process results in significant wait time and countless hours lost in searching for books from my buy-list and rent-list.
My Smart Book Stack Replenisher aims to improve this process by cutting down on wait time and on lost productivity.
Replenisher application consists of a sensor that resides in my book shelf and monitors the height of my unread book stack. The Replenisher is initialized with the buy-list and the rent-list. The Replenisher is also initialized with a set of constraints which determine the list of books that will be ordered at any particular time. When the unread stack size falls below a threshold value, the replenisher orders books based on the buy-list, rent-list and the set of constraints described below. The books in the buy-list are constrained by user specified preferences for either a "new" or "used" copy of the book. They are constrained by the user specified preference for either a "hardcover" or a "paperback" version of the book. Other preferences for edition, price and condition (in the case of a used book) can also be specified. Another import constraint is the amount of money available to make purchases (budgetary constraint).
The Replenisher application uses Amazon DRS to order books from the buy-list.
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