DatabaseLanes

Types of lanes:

• Based on a language or languages
• Based on a format (audiobooks vs ebooks)
• Based on a license data source (e.g. put the entire Plympton collection up front)
• Based on an audience (adult vs YA vs children)
• Based on fiction status (fiction vs nonfiction)
• Based on genres
• Based on a custom list (Staff Picks)
• Based on a custom list data source (NYT Best Sellers)

These are general guides and lanes may combine different aspects. Most of a library's lanes will specify a language, a format, and some other thing (usually a genre).

A new sublane will have its parent lane's settings as a default, but it should be easy to change this.

User interface

This will suffice for nearly all libraries. (Open Ebooks is a notable exception, and we'll have to put custom lane definitions in the database to handle it.)

The goal here is to meet the needs of most libraries with a minimum of UI controls.

Automatically create a lane for each of the 178 (or whatever number genres) in each supported language.

In the user interface, display the tree structure of the lanes for a given language. Alongside each lane, display the number of works in the collection that would be available through the lane.

Display a list of custom lists and well-known data sources for custom lists (NYT, maybe Novelist).

Admins may check a box next to a genre to show the lane for that genre, or uncheck a box to hide the lane for that genre. These lanes are never deleted, only hidden.

If you hide all of a lane's subgenres, then that lane is rendered as a big scrolling acquisition feed. If one or more of a lane's subgenres are visible, that lane is rendered as a grouped acquisition feed, with an "All {genre}" feed at the bottom that's rendered as a big scrolling acquisition feed.

An admin may drag-and-drop a custom list (or list source) beneath a lane. This creates a lane based on that custom list (or list source) which shows up as a sublane in the grouped acquisition feed for the parent lane.

The lanes table

• lane_id: Unique ID

• library_id: Foreign key to libraries. Must be present. Two libraries can have lanes that are identical, but one lane cannot be associated with more than one library. There are too many ways for library-specific information to slip in (custom list,

• parent_id: Foreign key to lanes. Null indicates a top-level lane.

• full_name: A name unique to this library.

• display_name: The name to display to patrons. A library can have only one lane with full_name "Fiction", but it can have separate "Adult Fiction" and "YA Fiction" lanes, both with the display_name "Fiction". However, a lane cannot have two sublanes with the same display name. -- this will look confusing.

• fiction: This can take three values: "fiction", "nonfiction" or "both". If this is set to "fiction" (or "nonfiction"), then only fiction (or nonfiction) will be included in book lists, and only fiction (or nonfiction) genres will be available in the genre list.

• audiences: List of audiences. If this is set, only books whose audience matches one in the list will be included. More than one audience may be selected.

• target_age: Only applicable for lanes with audiences that contain no material for adults. If this is set, only books suitable for the given target ages will be included.

• genres : Many-to-many relationship with genres. Only books classified under the given genres will show up.

• excluded_genres Many-to-many relationship with genres. Books classified under the given genres will not show up, even if they would have otherwise based on genres.

• languages: A list of languages. Only books in one of these languages will show up.

• exclude_languages: A list of languages. Books in all languages except these will show up.

  This is mutually exclusive with languages, so maybe they should be stored in the same database field. Or this should be removed altogether.

• media: Either a medium or a list of media. For now this can always be "Book" but soon "Audiobook" will be a possibility

• formats: Either a format or a list of formats. Currently this will always be "Electronic" but "Codex" may eventually be a possibility.

• license_source_id: Only titles from this license source will be considered.

• searchable: If this is True, then the lane's feeds will issue an OpenSearch document that searches the lane. If not, the OpenSearch document will search the nearest parent of this lane that is searchable. (That's the existing behavior. Rather than blindly reproduce it, this is a good opportunity to do user research and figure out what is helpful.)

• list_data_source_id: Only titles on a CustomList associated with this data source will be considered.

• list_identifier_id Only titles on this specific CustomList will be considered.

• list_seen_in_previous_days: For lanes that use CustomLists to build title must have been on a CustomList. Default is zero, indicating that the title must currently be on the list.

• list_ignores_parent: In general, if you create a lane based on one or more CustomLists, books are only shown in that lane if they're on the list and they would be shown in the parent lane. This lets you manage a single "Staff Picks" list instead of a "Fiction Staff Picks", "Nonfiction Staff Picks", "Spanish Staff Picks", etc.

  If you set this boolean, then books from the list will be shown even if they wouldn't be shown in the parent lane. This lets you show e.g. nonfiction for people who like science fiction, selected 'adult' books in the YA section, etc.

  We can add this feature later, since it's not something we support now.

• root_for_patron_type: A list of strings. Patrons whose external type is in that list will be sent to this lane when they ask for the root lane. (This is how we'll get 'root_lane' out of the Open Ebooks JSON configuration.)

• visible: True by default. If this is set to false, the lane will not actually be shown to patrons. This lets librarians work on a lane without making it public.

• appeals: A list of appeals. We don't use appeals anymore so this can be removed for now.

The lane_genres join table

This join table says that books in a given genre are eligible for inclusion in a lane (or explicitly excluded from the lane).

• lane_id
• genre_id
• include - If this is True (the default) then this row means to include books that match the criteria. If this is False, then this row means to exclude books that match the criteria, even if they would otherwise be included.
• with_subgenres - If this is True, then all of the genre's subgenres are counted as this genre for purposes of inclusion (or exclusion) in this lane. If this is False, then the genre's

These items are removed: If you want or don't want sublanes, you can add them yourself. However, we do need to keep around the logic behind these, for when we are initially populating the lanes table.

• include_best_sellers:
• include_staff_picks
• include_all
• subgenre_behavior

Initial state

To start with, there are no lanes.

A set of lanes can be autogenerated to match the current collection.

A lane must have 1000 books in it; otherwise it is folded up into the next highest lane.

A key indicator of completeness is 'how many books are not in any lane?'