About
Lantern Free Library Online is a platform for viewing, managing, and discussing the inventory of a Little Free Library® in Rhode Island. Users can track their donations and talk about books or other topics on the blog. Note: Little Free Library® is a trademark of the Little Free Library non-profit organization, which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this app.
How It Works
The catalog depends on user input about donations and receipts. When donating, all a user needs to do is click on the "Add a Book" button in the catalog and enter the author and title. The app adds the book to the inventory and uses the author and title information to query the Google Books API for additional metadata about the title, such as a cover image, the publication date, and a description of the book. As this data might not accurately describe the particular copy in the library, users can also edit the records for their donations in the profile section if they wish.
When "borrowing" a book, all a user needs to do is click on the "Remove" button on a title in the catalog. This helps keep the catalog current by removing the book from the inventory.
Tech Specs
Lantern Free Library Online is a Python Web app on a Flask framework with a SQLAlchemy/Psycopg2 backend. Werkzeug encryption secures user login information. URLLib and Regex facilitate the app's interaction with the Google Books API. On the front end, Flask WTF handles the forms, and Jinja2 templates and Bootstrap 4.0 components (cards, rows, and columns) supplement the HTML5/CSS3. Hosting is on Heroku.
Contact
Questions, concerns or suggestions? Email