How about creating an index for the Textbook section?

[SredniVashtar]

I know it's possible to sort the threads according to the subject tag, but I believe it would be nice to have, for each textbook 'section' two posts with a listing of all the books sorted by title, and by author.

Someone with knowledge could write a script that each time a new book is added by the mods, it scans all the thread titles, extract the title (the author, after 'by '), and create a list with links to each thread sorted by title (by author). Two post with a list of links: "Books ordered by title" and "Books ordered by author".

This would make it easier to find a certain book, or a book from a given author but most importantly books similar to each other. Also, all the books will appear in a nice compact view in a single post and not on multiple pages.

Am I the only one who would find that useful?

 

[Fredrik]

This sounds like a good thing to have. But it would mean more work for the moderators. I think it will be easier for them to just add the links manually than to write a script.

This thread should perhaps be in the feedback section and not here? If you agree, you can use the report button and ask the moderators to move it. If not, nevermind.

 

[micromass]

What about this: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=668404

I'm working on a list for the physics textbooks

 

[SredniVashtar]

What about this: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=668404

I'm working on a list for the physics textbooks

This is very nice.
I did not ask for a categorized list because that seemed to me too much work to do, but it certainly is better.
This makes it easier to find books one is not looking for :-).
Seriously, one of the best things of walking through a library is that you can find books you were not expected to look for, and that is something that cannot happen when you look for a specific title with a search engine.
As a matter of fact, some of the best books I've read are those that sit on the shelves on the way to the books I was looking for. :-]

As for the idea of moving this thread in the feedback section, I certainly would not oppose to it should the mods deem it fit, but I believe this is the right place to get the initial feedback from user of this part of the forum. I believe the feedback section could be the right place to discuss the implementation quirks, like which scripting language use to automate this task and how to write the code.