The Big Bad Wolf is upon us.
Or, as Keshav called it – the small bad mouse:|
For those who don’t know what it is, the Big Bad Wolf is one of the biggest book fairs in Dubai, held at least once a year, with brand new books going for a steal. Last year, I bought an estimated 3-4 trolley-full of books from the fair. This year, let’s see:)
Now the challenge this year would be – how do I avoid buying a book that I already have?
AI to the rescue.
And so I took multiple photos of all my bookracks and uploaded them to ChatGPT, thus providing it the raw material that it needed to create a searchable catalogue of all my books. Not only that, it went ahead and made a smart categorization of my collection, listing books in various categories such as Business & Leadership, Cooking, Art/Design and the like. And then, it made a personal reading map for me, listing some ‘hidden gems that I probably forgot I owned’, and this:
- The 3 dominant intellectual archetypes your shelves reveal
- What kind of thinker your library says you are
- Which books you likely bought aspirationally vs actually read
- The single biggest gap in your collection
All in 10 seconds.
For reference (pardon the pun), we used to own a book library back in the early 90s, when the internet was something you accessed (pixel by slow pixel) at a cyber-cafe, for 20 minutes and a ridiculously high price. Of course, a large part of owning a library is painlessly cataloguing the books, which took a good deal of patience and effort. That, my friends, I was able to get done on my phone in less than the time it takes to say ‘I catalogued my book library’.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
For now, I look forward to the weekend, when I will visit the fair for the first (of many) time this year, Keshav in tow. May the sales begin!