There's a long thread about the formation of a book lexicon that I think\nis starting to demonstrate some of the worts of lexicon design. Different\napplications with different levels of use and applications are going to result\nin different needs. Instead, I think we're seeing the need for resolve more of\nwhat works within the model of ATProto; consolidation around what should be\nshared by the (app)views and less focus on exposing the plumbing of our\nindividual applications to the rest of the world.
\nWhat I have seen repeated is something useful: exposing identifiers that can\nbe useful for disambiguation. This would be the title, author and a set of\nidentifiers that can be used to find more information about a book in one's\nlocal catalog like their ISBN, UPC, EAN, ASIN, ISSN, etc. The astute reader\nwould notice that ISSNs and UPCs can be used for magazines and UPCs for general\nproducts. In some publishing cases, books can be printed with those\nconstraints. As Nick mentions here that this work (emphasis mine):
\n\n\n[This] will be very hard, I would even say firmly, it should not be done.\nThere will always be mismatches between datasets, and it will be an MxN\nproblem. Exponentially hard when you account for other providers’ datasets.
\nI think that the local optimum solution here is for the user to have the\npower to make this mapping on their own case-by-case basis.
\n
This helped me, as well as the other points made from Dracome, Hardcover and\nmicro.blog, to come to the following proposal for the book lexicon XRPC for\nappviews and its expected responses:
\ncommunity.lexicon.bookI've made a light proposal for these records, but here it is more formalized:
\nThe goal is for five records to live under the community.lexicon.book. NSID, sharing identifier and contribution shapes via community.lexicon.book.defs.
community.lexicon.book.defs
// Shared object shapes used across the book namespace.\n// `main` — identifier object (URI + resource scheme).\n// `contribution` — (subject strongRef, role) wrapper for the contributor lists in edition/work.\n{\n \"lexicon\": 1,\n \"id\": \"community.lexicon.book.defs\",\n \"description\": \"Shared object shapes used by community.lexicon.book.* records.\",\n \"defs\": {\n \"main\": {\n \"type\": \"object\",\n \"description\": \"An external identifier scoped to a specific source or scheme.\",\n \"required\": [\"uri\", \"resource\"],\n \"properties\": {\n \"uri\": {\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"format\": \"uri\",\n \"minLength\": 1,\n \"maxLength\": 2048,\n \"description\": \"URL for vendor/library links, URN for scheme-based IDs (urn:isbn:..., urn:doi:...).\"\n },\n \"resource\": {\n \"type\": \"string\",\n // Open set — new sources (vendors, libraries, schemes) can be added without schema changes.\n \"description\": \"Source system or scheme this identifier belongs to.\",\n \"knownValues\": [\n // ISBN family\n \"isbn\",\n \"isbn13\",\n \"isbn10\",\n // Other commerce / catalog schemes\n \"asin\",\n \"doi\",\n \"oclc\",\n \"isbnPrefix\",\n // Authority records (people/orgs)\n \"isni\",\n \"viaf\",\n \"wikidata\",\n // Vendor / library sites\n \"openlibrary\",\n \"googleBooks\",\n \"goodreads\",\n \"amazon\",\n \"barnes\",\n \"hardcover\",\n \"bookhive\",\n \"bibliograph\",\n \"imdb\",\n \"official\",\n // Catch-all for personal site / blog\n \"web\"\n ]\n }\n }\n },\n \"contribution\": {\n \"type\": \"object\",\n \"description\": \"A contribution by a contributor to an edition or work.\",\n \"required\": [\"subject\", \"role\"],\n \"properties\": {\n // → community.lexicon.book.contributor (strongRef: URI + CID)\n \"subject\": {\n \"type\": \"ref\",\n \"ref\": \"com.atproto.repo.strongRef\"\n },\n \"role\": {\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"knownValues\": [\n \"author\",\n \"coAuthor\",\n \"editor\",\n \"translator\",\n \"illustrator\",\n \"narrator\",\n \"foreword\",\n \"contributor\"\n ]\n }\n }\n }\n }\n}\ncommunity.lexicon.book.edition
// A single edition (publication event) of a book. The entry-point record.\n// `work` — OPTIONAL → community.lexicon.book.work (omit if not modeling the work abstraction).\n// `publisher` — OPTIONAL → community.lexicon.book.publisher (small-press / unknown OK).\n// `contributors[]` — array of community.lexicon.book.defs#contribution (subject + role).\n{\n \"lexicon\": 1,\n \"id\": \"community.lexicon.book.edition\",\n \"defs\": {\n \"main\": {\n \"type\": \"record\",\n \"description\": \"A single edition of a book. Optionally grouped under a work record.\",\n \"key\": \"tid\",\n \"record\": {\n \"type\": \"object\",\n \"required\": [\"title\", \"createdAt\"],\n \"properties\": {\n \"title\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"minLength\": 1, \"maxLength\": 2048, \"maxGraphemes\": 200 },\n \"subtitle\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"maxLength\": 1024, \"maxGraphemes\": 100 },\n \"work\": { \"type\": \"ref\", \"ref\": \"com.atproto.repo.strongRef\" },\n \"publisher\": { \"type\": \"ref\", \"ref\": \"com.atproto.repo.strongRef\" },\n \"place\": {\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"maxLength\": 256,\n \"maxGraphemes\": 64,\n \"description\": \"Place of publication. Free-form; not normalized.\"\n },\n \"publishedYear\": { \"type\": \"integer\", \"minimum\": 0, \"maximum\": 9999 },\n \"language\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"format\": \"language\" },\n \"contributors\": {\n \"type\": \"array\",\n \"minLength\": 0,\n \"maxLength\": 64,\n \"items\": { \"type\": \"ref\", \"ref\": \"community.lexicon.book.defs#contribution\" }\n },\n \"identifiers\": {\n \"type\": \"array\",\n \"minLength\": 0,\n \"maxLength\": 32,\n \"items\": { \"type\": \"ref\", \"ref\": \"community.lexicon.book.defs#main\" }\n },\n \"description\": {\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"maxLength\": 8192,\n \"maxGraphemes\": 1024,\n \"description\": \"Free-form description of this edition. Serves as bibliographic edition statement ('First edition', 'Revised second printing') and/or a blurb/summary.\"\n },\n \"createdAt\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"format\": \"datetime\" }\n }\n }\n }\n }\n}\ncommunity.lexicon.book.work
// An abstract book work — the conceptual work that one or more editions are manifestations of.\n// Opt-in: implementations may publish only editions and ignore this layer.\n{\n \"lexicon\": 1,\n \"id\": \"community.lexicon.book.work\",\n \"defs\": {\n \"main\": {\n \"type\": \"record\",\n \"description\": \"An abstract book work. Opt-in layer above editions.\",\n \"key\": \"tid\",\n \"record\": {\n \"type\": \"object\",\n \"required\": [\"title\", \"createdAt\"],\n \"properties\": {\n \"title\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"minLength\": 1, \"maxLength\": 2048, \"maxGraphemes\": 200 },\n \"subtitle\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"maxLength\": 1024, \"maxGraphemes\": 100 },\n \"originalLanguage\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"format\": \"language\" },\n \"firstPublishedYear\": { \"type\": \"integer\", \"minimum\": 0, \"maximum\": 9999 },\n \"subjects\": {\n \"type\": \"array\",\n \"minLength\": 0,\n \"maxLength\": 32,\n \"description\": \"Subject tags / genres.\",\n \"items\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"maxLength\": 128, \"maxGraphemes\": 32 }\n },\n \"contributors\": {\n \"type\": \"array\",\n \"minLength\": 0,\n \"maxLength\": 64,\n \"items\": { \"type\": \"ref\", \"ref\": \"community.lexicon.book.defs#contribution\" }\n },\n \"identifiers\": {\n \"type\": \"array\",\n \"minLength\": 0,\n \"maxLength\": 32,\n \"items\": { \"type\": \"ref\", \"ref\": \"community.lexicon.book.defs#main\" }\n },\n \"description\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"maxLength\": 8192, \"maxGraphemes\": 1024 },\n \"createdAt\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"format\": \"datetime\" }\n }\n }\n }\n }\n}\ncommunity.lexicon.book.contributor
// A person (real or pen name) credited in producing book editions or works.\n// One record per real-world person; deduplicated by AppViews via `identifiers`.\n// `linkedDid` lets the contributor claim ownership by pointing at their own ATProto account.\n{\n \"lexicon\": 1,\n \"id\": \"community.lexicon.book.contributor\",\n \"defs\": {\n \"main\": {\n \"type\": \"record\",\n \"description\": \"A person credited in producing book editions or works.\",\n \"key\": \"tid\",\n \"record\": {\n \"type\": \"object\",\n \"required\": [\"name\", \"createdAt\"],\n \"properties\": {\n \"name\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"minLength\": 1, \"maxLength\": 256, \"maxGraphemes\": 64 },\n \"aliases\": {\n \"type\": \"array\",\n \"minLength\": 0,\n \"maxLength\": 16,\n \"items\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"minLength\": 1, \"maxLength\": 256, \"maxGraphemes\": 64 }\n },\n \"linkedDid\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"format\": \"did\" },\n \"bio\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"maxLength\": 8192, \"maxGraphemes\": 1024 },\n \"bornYear\": { \"type\": \"integer\", \"minimum\": 0, \"maximum\": 9999 },\n \"diedYear\": { \"type\": \"integer\", \"minimum\": 0, \"maximum\": 9999 },\n \"identifiers\": {\n \"type\": \"array\",\n \"minLength\": 0,\n \"maxLength\": 16,\n \"items\": { \"type\": \"ref\", \"ref\": \"community.lexicon.book.defs#main\" }\n },\n \"createdAt\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"format\": \"datetime\" }\n }\n }\n }\n }\n}\ncommunity.lexicon.book.publisher
// A publishing entity (publisher house, imprint, or self-publishing author-as-publisher).\n// One record per real-world entity; deduplicated by AppViews via `identifiers`.\n// `imprintOf` lets imprints/divisions point up at their parent house (e.g. Tor → Macmillan).\n{\n \"lexicon\": 1,\n \"id\": \"community.lexicon.book.publisher\",\n \"defs\": {\n \"main\": {\n \"type\": \"record\",\n \"description\": \"A publishing entity.\",\n \"key\": \"tid\",\n \"record\": {\n \"type\": \"object\",\n \"required\": [\"name\", \"createdAt\"],\n \"properties\": {\n \"name\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"minLength\": 1, \"maxLength\": 256, \"maxGraphemes\": 64 },\n // OPTIONAL → another community.lexicon.book.publisher record (parent house)\n \"imprintOf\": { \"type\": \"ref\", \"ref\": \"com.atproto.repo.strongRef\" },\n \"foundingDate\": {\n \"type\": \"integer\",\n \"minimum\": 0,\n \"maximum\": 9999,\n \"description\": \"Year founded (4-digit).\"\n },\n \"closingDate\": {\n \"type\": \"integer\",\n \"minimum\": 0,\n \"maximum\": 9999,\n \"description\": \"Year ceased operations. Omit if still active.\"\n },\n \"identifiers\": {\n \"type\": \"array\",\n \"minLength\": 0,\n \"maxLength\": 16,\n \"items\": { \"type\": \"ref\", \"ref\": \"community.lexicon.book.defs#main\" }\n },\n \"createdAt\": { \"type\": \"string\", \"format\": \"datetime\" }\n }\n }\n }\n }\n}\nContributors can be the author but also the translator, editor, illustrator;\nthe list gets long and can add a complexity that some catalogs might not\nimmediately have; making it optional when implementing a compatible AppView.\nThis also introduces publishers as a first-class record type but also optional. I opted to make editions, the digestable unit of what makes this work work the only thing needed to get to the rest and have everything else opt-in.
\nThe sole query needed for a bibliographic AppView to implement would be\ncommunity.lexicon.book.searchEditions. It'll allow for searching by free form\ntext text (with the query parameter q) or by an identifier (with the query\nidentifier id, supporting the repetition of the parameter so you can send a\nlist of values). It'll also take in an optional cursor parameter to allow\nfor pagination in whichever way the AppView implements it, similar to other\nAppViews in the ATProto space. limit will be set to a suggested default of 20.\nResponses should be of the following shape and reason:
200: if the search completes okay even if there's no results. A key items\nholding the list (empty or not) of community.lexicon.book.edition records and\na optional field cursor to page to the next set of results with another\noptional field total representing the total number of records in this result.400: An AppView should return this if the search query is invalid to it.\nFor example, if it supports Lucene syntax but it's invalid, return that here.GET /xrpc/community.lexicon.book.searchEditions?\n q=<free form text>\n &id=urn:isbn:9780708899441\n &id=https://openlibrary.org/works/OL24151553W/Harlem_Shuffle?edition=key%3A/books/OL34709636M\n &id=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/608669/harlem-shuffle-by-colson-whitehead/\n\nHTTP/1.1 200 OK\nContent-Type: application/json\n\n{\n \"items\": [\n { /* entry of the community.lexicon.book.edition shape */}\n ],\n \"cursor\": \"nextPageOfItems\",\n \"total\": 6403\n\n}\nOther queries like the following would follow the same suit, only that they'd\nreturn 501 if the AppView doesn't support such a query:
\ncommunity.lexicon.book.searchContributorscommunity.lexicon.book.searchPublisherscommunity.lexicon.book.searchWorksIn order to discover what other lexicons and queries that a bibliographic\nAppView supports, the following query MUST be implemented (along with\n.book.searchEditions):
GET /xrpc/community.lexicon.book.compatibility\n\nHTTP/1.1 200 OK\nContent-Type: application/json\n\n{\n \"queries\": [\n {\"nsid\": \"book.searchEditions\"},\n {\"nsid\": \"book.searchContributors\"}\n ]\n}\nA client can call this in advance without having to hit a 501 when calling an\nendpoint unexpectedly. This idea was taken from the IndieWeb with Micropub's\nextension for querying for syndication targets to allow for a progressive\ninterface. The following is the query schema:
\n{\n \"lexicon\": 1,\n \"id\": \"community.lexicon.book.compatibility\",\n \"defs\": {\n \"main\": {\n \"type\": \"query\",\n \"description\": \"List the XRPC queries (and procedures) this AppView implements under community.lexicon.book.*. Clients use this instead of probing each NSID and tolerating 501 responses.\",\n \"output\": {\n \"encoding\": \"application/json\",\n \"schema\": {\n \"type\": \"object\",\n \"required\": [\"queries\"],\n \"properties\": {\n \"queries\": {\n \"type\": \"array\",\n \"items\": { \"type\": \"ref\", \"ref\": \"#queryRef\" }\n }\n }\n }\n }\n },\n \"queryRef\": {\n \"type\": \"object\",\n \"required\": [\"nsid\"],\n \"properties\": {\n \"nsid\": {\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"format\": \"nsid\",\n \"description\": \"Truncated NSID relative to the 'community.lexicon' authority (e.g. 'book.searchWorks'). The full NSID is reconstructed by prepending 'community.lexicon.'.\"\n },\n \"type\": {\n \"type\": \"string\",\n \"knownValues\": [\"query\", \"procedure\"],\n \"description\": \"Whether this endpoint is a query (GET) or procedure (POST). Omit if the AppView only exposes queries.\"\n }\n }\n }\n }\n}\nIt's also very open to conversation (would it make more sense to inline this\ninformation into the book record itself instead of having it be a collection of\nstrong references + thin references? What else do we gain? What else do we\nlose?)
\nWe can start here for just handling discovery of books and then iterate to\nthe shape of a review so we can then add more queries to compatible AppViews.\nThis will eventually allow for the kind of interoperability we see with the\nmicroblogging space (with Bluesky and its kin) and the long form blogging (as\nwe see with https://standard.site). There's another thread where\nconversation for the review shape can be held to help faciliate that but\nfor now, we need consensus on this. From the conversation held in the thread, I\nthink proposing the above will work to satisfy everyone's needs for\ninteroperability.
\n", "summary": "We will not agree on how to organize the information and that is okay.", "date_published": "2026-08-22T00:00:00.000Z", "date_modified": "2026-08-22T00:00:00.000Z", "authors": [ { "name": "Jacky", "uri": "https://www.jacky.wtf" } ], "tags": [ "lexicon", "discussion" ] }, { "id": "https://olamaelcu.net/blog/2026/cutting-scope", "url": "https://olamaelcu.net/blog/2026/cutting-scope", "title": "Cutting Scope: Dropping Spadat and Scratchback", "content_html": "In lieu of wanting to focus more on Livtet and Beats, I had to sunset\nboth Spadat, the almost-complete Spades game over ATProto and Scratchback, the\nSDK that enabled some of the primitives it was based on. I might revisit them\nin the future when time and energy permits but for now they'll be retired.\nSpadat was written using Godot and Rust and Scratchback entirely in Rust with a\nSvelteKit frontend to allow game developers to tweak settings on-the-fly about\ngames as well as aiming to provide Web-based leader boards.
\nYou also won't see them anymore in https://waitlist.olamaelcu.net if you\nalready subscribed to them. I apologize for the inconvenience.
\nTo Livtet! To Beats!
\n", "summary": "Putting two projects into the archive", "date_published": "2026-08-12T00:00:00.000Z", "date_modified": "2026-08-12T00:00:00.000Z", "authors": [ { "name": "Jacky", "uri": "https://www.jacky.wtf" } ], "tags": [ "meta" ] }, { "id": "https://olamaelcu.net/blog/2026/biblio-goals", "url": "https://olamaelcu.net/blog/2026/biblio-goals", "title": "What's the point of Bibliograph?", "content_html": "So, you're curious about Bibliograph. It came out of a discussion with some\nfolks about how we can model a book lexicon and is a direct product of\nwhat Livtet's move to rely on ATProto for all of its work — from\nshelving content to finding what books are trending across the Atmosphere.
\n\n\nIf you're not familiar with the internals of SQLite, you can skip this section.
\n
As I was importing the books from OpenLibrary's torrent dump, Bibliograph ended\nup generating a 48 gigabyte WAL file that locked up the little 2GB RAM\nmachine it's running on1. I had to do the following:
\njournal_size_limit = 134217728tap instanceAll of this is described in this commit. These changes are needed to keep\nit running well on a tight machine and my goal is to keep it running on this\nsized machine for as long as possible so anyone can pick this up and run it on\ncommodity hardware.
\nHowever, something else was happening. Can you tell what's wrong with this SQL query?
\nresults = await db.query.books.findMany({\n where: or(\n like(books.title, `%__health_check__ __health_check__%`),\n like(books.author, `%__health_check__ __health_check__%`)\n ),\n limit,\n offset\n});\nRunning this query against a 4G SQLite database sounds okay if you don't mind\nwaiting 30 seconds on a 2GB RAM machine. This is what led me to do early\ntermination. Basically, running a full-table scan on 3.4 GB of books slowed\nthings down a lot because LIKE '%...%' can't use a B-tree index; especially\nwithin a Node loop. This __health_check__ bit is coming from Livtet every 5\nminutes to make sure that Bibliograph is responsive — this was how it\nknew to send interactions to Bibliograph (like enriching book and author\ninformation, fetching shelving information, etc).
As of now (time of writing), Bibliograph knows of 5,111,432\nbooks (currently 5,111,432 books). This allows Livtet's public search to return all of the books it knows\nwithout having to ask Google Books or OpenLibrary (directly) anymore. This also\npowers the logic around the soon-to-come jigsaw puzzle game that Livtet has based on the\ncover of books — the first of many attempts to build engaging experiences\naround books that don't involve reading (or just reading, you should still be\nreading)!
\nI'm very open to feedback, ideas and questions about these apps! Send\nfeedback to their pages for Livtet and for Bibliograph.
\n\nThis is why there's rate limiting! ↩
\nLivtet is a project I've mulled over and over (and over - and\nover!); starting it from scratch when I discovered a new form of\norganizing content that worked with my sense of library sciences. I've decided\nto take a hard shift and put it into the public again. It used to live on\nSourceHut but I brought it to GitHub so I can take advantage of a few things:
\nWith all that said, Livtet has become my gateway project into the complexity\nof AT Protocol. I have plans to have it work with Nostr soon and had a\nsmall prototype generated by DeepSeek but I need to scale up infrastructure to\nhandle both2. In order to really operate in a communal fashion, I decided, after some conversation of not taking the initial approach that applications like Bookhive and Popfeed have in\nmaking custom lexicons for their tracking of information, and leaned into the\nspirit of https://lexicon.community in a small prototype called\nBibliograph. I initially had a custom lexicon for it under the NSID\nnet.olamaelcu.livtet but interoperability is way more important to me.
Bibliograph is the result of conversation with folks interested in tracking\nbooks on-protocol and some early research on what that'd look like for a real\napplication, like Livtet to make use of it. For example, my profile page\nshows information that apps like Bookhive and Popfeed can start consuming to\nshow today, thanks to the XRPC methods provided by Bibliograph. You can see the\nconversation that sparked it on AT Protocol Discourse - be sure to chime in!
\nOne could eschew using Bibliograph and ingest the AT firehose themselves to\ncompose a graph of information about books and the information around it today,\ncombing over existing lexicons that emit such information so it provides a\n\"community-powered backfill\", so to speak. However, having folks move to the\nnew lexicon for new work helps test out the kinks in the spec and schema.
\nThis brings me to the more interesting page for layfolks: Livtet's web\nexperience should have an early release sometime this month. I'm slating it for\nlate August as I'm also trying to work on the native mobile applications to go\nwith it as well. Those are actually open source as I hope to demonstrate\nhow to use the core library with it but it'll support communicating to the\nLivtet API (to be documented) as well as eventually using the Bibliograph XRPC\ndirectly, making it a \"native\" AT Protocol client. I'd love to see clients like\nHeron sneak in support for this, the same way it supports Standard Site\nsubscriptions as this will show the plural power of AT Protocol and the things\nyou can unlock with a simple API.
\nLet me know what you think by mentioning @olamaelcu.net on AT\nProto, about Livtet on its UserInput page or sending e-mail to\njacky@olamaelcu.net!
My words here - I understand that the act of making things easier to use\nand hiding complexity is Actually Good. I wish, at times, that the D in\nDVCS was something that the executive product team at GitHub focused on but\nthat'd eat into their money. ↩
\nWould you believe that all of the apps under <olamaelcu.net> are running\non a 2GB RAM droplet? ↩
\nThis is going to be short and sweet.
\nYou can read about the purpose of this entity — for now it's mainly the\n\"output\" of the projects Jacky until other things fall\ninto place. Things like the kind of projects that are meant to be either\nflagship services or tools can be found at the projects page.
\nI'm aiming to release the things I've been hammering on for some time slowly to\neveryone. The easiest way to be notified when a new service is available before\nit's made more generally available is by signing up for the waitlist. Once\nyou're signed in and when spots are available, you'll be able to log into the\nservices you opted into. You can view all of the projects for opting in\n— before you decide to commit.
\nThere's a bunch of things I want to build and contribute to and it's not enough\nto just write about it. There's enough space now seeing that I'm\n(Jacky) largely a free\nagent and I'd like to spend that time working on\nsomething I've written and engaged in for the last few years — the open\nsocial Web. I'll have time for folks who'd like to\ntalk about ideas that'd like to bring to fruition around the social Web.
\nThe ideal flow is a bit traditional: biweekly grind on features, concept\ndevelopment and slinging that out to the public for commentary and review.\nUntil a more structured approach to voting on development is in place, I'll\nreserve final say on what gets out there — mainly since this is all\neffectively pro-bono (for now).
\nConsider this the first download of many - to making things for people!
\n", "summary": "Getting things ready to show", "date_published": "2026-05-11T00:00:00.000Z", "date_modified": "2026-05-11T00:00:00.000Z", "authors": [ { "name": "Jacky", "uri": "https://www.jacky.wtf" } ], "tags": [ "meta" ] } ] }