About

Overview

The Duke's Archives is a tool for managing your collections of physical media: namely, books, films, video games, and music. I have long held an interest for collecting media, and have built up a respectable personal library over the past several years. Upon one occasion I suddenly realized that my collection had grown to the point that I could no longer trust myself to keep everything in my memory alone and risked buying duplicates by mistake. A physical book or spreadsheet proved insufficient for my needs, since these are not portable enough to accompany me to any stores I might visit. Thus I decided I might build a website to serve that purpose. My experience with web development is rather limited, so I decided to keep the app to a certain level of core functionality which I may expand later. User registration is done manually by administrator, and there is no central store of media – each user must add works individually. Overall, I think building this tool has been a valuable experience for planning/managing features, problem-solving, and structuring projects.

Usage Guide

Use the Add Media page to add various works to the archives. Enter necessary information in the form, including a list of creators and their creative roles on the work as well as a comma-separated list of genres or tags by which you can search for works later. Then, from the list of creators you have entered, choose a primary creator to display on the search page. Navigate to the Media Search page to manage the works you have added. You can use the options on this page to search the works you've entered, add copies of different works to your collection and wishlist, edit works, and delete them. The copies you have added can likewise be managed through the Collection and Wishlist pages.

For an example, I own several different editions of The Lord of the Rings. To add these to my collection, I would first navigate to the Add Media page and fill out the form to add The Lord of the Rings to the media database. Then I would find it in the Media Search page and click "Add Copy" to enter information on my copies of the book and add them to my collection.

Possible Future Features

• Image upload support and the ability to record more information about copies in your collection/wishlist
• Ability to create lists for grouping and organizing items in your collection/wishlist
• Data charts for stats on user collections; ability to customize home page to show different metrics.
• Leaderboards with stats on the collections of all users
• General UI improvements