Discussion: Improving a Rune Library

[Kratos Aurion]

Hi guys. I know theres a few of you out there that totally depend on using rune libraries. I was one of you [points to crowd] at one time. But throughout the past few months, I have been developing my own which currently has between 140-155 runebooks (non-resource related). I have to say I'm pretty satisfied with what I've gotten so far. 99% of the runes I have are marked by manual running labor (and a boat). The other 1% are donated runes that can no longer be accessed with the exception of recall.

Anyways, enough about what I have. I've been looking to improve my collection by making runes easier to find. Currently, they're all organized by color (blue = tram, red = fel, etc) but that doesn't seem to justify my expectations of "user friendly"

So in a nut shell, I'm looking for ways I could improve the user friendly aspects of my library such as methods of making books easier to find etc.

I know alot of people like quality and thats what I aim for

Below are two images of my library (The Royal Britannian Library) located in Trammel Trinsic Swamp, Great Lakes.

First floor (bulk of the books)

Second floor (a small northern collection)

 

[UO Relic]

With the color shadings available to the dye tubs I varied my blues for Tram
Different shades for Town, Dungeons, Tmaps. Also varied the reds for same on Fel.

Went for gold for unique/strange/interesting locations (not hunting places just locations that would be interesting to look at for some reason)

Went for Green for quest runes ie heartwood quests, hags, etc (had no reason for Green just went for a color I hadnt used yet)

Hunting locations I went for grey (hehe ran into someone using these runes once and while they loved the spots, he did admit some were beyond his hunting ability at that time and he kept going grey ie dieing after he left I thought yeah why not and dyed the books grey, lol in his honor)

 

[Black Sun]

I used to run a very large rune library on Catskills a few years back. I also used a color coding system.

Blue = Tram
Black = Fel
Green = Malas
Red = Dungeons/Dangerous Locations
White = Player Run Towns & Vendor Shops
Default (spell book color) = Safe unique locations.
Orange = Skill Training Locations
Yellow = Quest Books/Locations

And I also had a set of mining books (back when they were still necessary) colored by the ore they matched up to. My T-Map books were also colored Blue/Black depending on if they were Tram or Fel.


[Edit]
Another tip I could could give, is stack your books grouped together for their locations. (i.e. All quest books dyed one color and stacked on the same shelf) And then put a book with the title of what each stack is. That way your visitors don't have to mouse over each book to see where it goes. Or make up a book explaining your color coding system and leave it near the entrance so visitors can look at it and quickly find what they need.

 

[Kratos Aurion]

Currently, I have them organized like this.

Left side (west side of house) are all towns/cities.

Blue = Tram
Red = Fel
Black = Malas (blue beside black represents the lost lands)
Dark Green = Tokuno
Default Hue = Mondains Legacy Additions

On the east side is mostly my exploration runes etc.

Blue = Tram Tmap locations
Red = Fel Tmap locations
Light Green = Quests (the red is fel human-elf, 2 brown are tram human/elf quests)
Second Blue = Tram Dungeons (red book at end is fel dungeon entrances, and theres another book under it wich is hidden in that shot with fel/tram solen hive entrances hued Default)

In the second floor image

Red = Fel Britannia runes (places of interest etc)
Brown = Tram Britannia runes (paces of interest etc)

EDIT:

Aside from color coordination though, I'm looking for a way for people to say "oh! thats what I need"

Most people won't know where to start in a library which has always been a problem for me. It usually takes a few minutes to find what you need which Im trying to avoid for people visiting mine.

I was thinking about placing titled books ontop of the benches but then everyone has to wait for them to load anyways. It may be faster than loading all the rune books.

 

[Lady_Rachel]

Another way to code your stacks is like Andrasta has at Goodman's on Atlantic.
She has golden keys locked down that are marked according to what books are in that section. In addition to the color coding for various facets.

So in your Blue/Tram section you would have towns, dungeons, etc.
Not sure it would work in your case. Just another option.

 

[Kratos Aurion]

Hunting locations I went for grey (hehe ran into someone using these runes once and while they loved the spots, he did admit some were beyond his hunting ability at that time and he kept going grey ie dieing after he left I thought yeah why not and dyed the books grey, lol in his honor)

Actually most of my hunting locations are integrated within the dungeon books. For example every hunting location within Ice Dungeon can be found in the Ice Dungeon book etc.

I do however, have books dedicated to outside hunting locations aside from dungeon crawling (which are located in the second floor books). Never thought about using grey. I might

EDIT: I have a book that briefly warns people lol. I don't want people to feel that its my fault they recalled into a death zone (*hint* top of ophidian lair) or inside one of the balron rooms in Hythloth.

So in your Blue/Tram section you would have towns, dungeons, etc.
Not sure it would work in your case. Just another option.

Thats the general idea of how mine is already set up. I did like the key idea however. It draws people in. Intrigues them to see whats inside.

 

[Desperado_SE]

Not sure if it's still set up the same way (been quite a while since I've been by her house) but a friend of mine who used to play on Sonoma used to keep her books together in wood boxes placed on bench shelving in groups, with each chest labeled as to what type of book(s) was/are in the chest. Then inside would be a regular book listing all the runes in each book under each separate book title (i.e. Tram Cities book title followed by the names of each rune in that book).

I used to to divide mine up by house floor myself. First floor had nothing but cities, second floor was for hunting, third floor was unique/bizarre locations and quest books, while the roof had all the training books. Other house had all my resource books. Don't have the pics anymore (that hard drive had a huge crash) but this set-up works pretty well for large libraries (I had somewhere around 1300 books at the time due to the mining sets for all the facets).

EDIT: I have a book that briefly warns people lol. I don't want people to feel that its my fault they recalled into a death zone (*hint* top of ophidian lair) or inside one of the balron rooms in Hythloth.

I had this same thing in my new library, but people still came to me pancakes about getting killed when using my hunter's guide set. So instead of using a book these days, I put a rune directly across from the creature rune in the book saying exactly where you're going, i.e.

Balron 1 <--Hythloth 4

Haven't had any problems with this set-up so far, although it does add up in extra books.

 

[Heimi]

Normal books on top of the shelves are useful for letting people know what is in a stack, rather than them having to mouseover every one. I see you're already considering that, so go with it! A bulletin board or named runebooks on the house steps could explain the colour coding system so people can see it as they arrive, then quickly go to the stack they need.

 

[Saunders]

Something I have seen that is useful: objects locked to the top of the stack of benches to indicate the rune types, such as treasure map for tmap locations, skull for dangerous places, resources like wool or cotton for resource spots.

 

[Calla Lily]

I've organized mine by color coding the bookcases rather than the books, so it's easy to see the different colors clearly. For example, all of my dungeon, hunting, and dangerous area books are in the red bookcases.

Treasured Goods, PaxOku City, Homare-Jima, Tokuno Islands, Chessy

I placed my shop vendors on the 2nd floor, because it's easier for people running in to use the library in a hurry to have easy access to the books.