Housed in the Hotel Ria Diani Cisarua, Bogor, bukuQ officially launched its services and entered a public beta stage.
This social networking service for book lovers officially announced their services last July 7 in the presence of practitioners, activists and observers of libraries throughout Indonesia because it also coincided with a seminar and workshop Union Catalog Web-Based Library which held on July 6 to 7 at the same place.
DailySocial had discuss bukuQ service several times, from the first plan of its appearance, the initial display and the latest version of the changes that remodel the old design, logo and added some new features and facilities.
From a release sent to DailySocial, Fajar Endra Nusa, founder of bukuQ explained that concurrent with this public beta release, bukuQ also cooperates with MySipisisPro® who also recently launched their latest service Copycataloging.com.
Cooperation undertaken in the form of an affiliate, which MySipisisPro® will enrich bibliographic database of books in bukuQ service, on the other hand, MySipisisPro® users can share and talk about books in bukuQ service.
For additional information, MySipisisPro® itself is the latest version of a library automation system based on MySQL database or PostgreSQL or MongoDB, the service was developed by a team of IPB Library Automation. Some of the features provided include Self Check Out, Union Catalogue, Email and SMS Notification, Online Reservation and can run on LINUX operating system, Windows and Mac. Further details can be viewed at this link. While Copycataloging.com is a bibliographic database of book sharing services.
What kind of facilities that can be enjoyed by bukuQ user in public beta version which now has a slogan ‘Keluarga Indonesia Gemar Membaca’? Fajar explained the various facilities that can be used by bukuQ users in public beta version include search featured books, friends search, review and books rating, discussion facilities, a list of books being read, the user can also add a collection of books in their accounts as well as certain messages when they add a collection. bukuQ has also provided facilities for users who want to add books to the bukuQ database and allows users to connect the conversation to Facebook.
The facility to distinguish between readers, publishers, bookstores and other elements that included in the book ecosystem will be developed next, so there will be a variety of features that are provided for each category.
I myself wrote a few suggestions for bukuQ in adding to the collection of books in their service, because the collection of books is an important part of bukuQ, cooperation with MySipisisPro® with its Copycataloging.com service could be one way in adding collection of books, though it would depends on user roles, but usually the enthusiast books will be happy to share their knowledge in the world of books.
Cooperation with services that have books community based could also be one advantage for bukuQ, competition with other book social networking is certainly not easy, there’s Amazon’s Shelfari and Goodreads, the latter has users from Indonesia which is quite solid. The community acquisition could be a way to directly introduce bukuQ services, it will be more exciting for example, if in each of the libraries that use MySipisisPro® service can be integrated with bukuQ, so inter-library members can socialize in bukuQ, similar to the early Facebook approach, when they become campus social networking.
Even though I’m rarely collecting books anymore, but I’m remain a fan of books, bukuQ service model is not really new, but it’s an original service from Indonesia, bukuQ could be the first (correct me if wrong). Hopefully with the launch and affiliate that run by bukuQ can introduce and make bukuQ the first choice for book lovers in Indonesia.
Photo via Fajar Endra Nusa.
