LibraNet : News

Libranet is 12 years old

12 years ago, at the beginning of January, after everyone sobered up from the bagel coma and New Year's Eve, everyone sadly noticed that the country's favorite book site had stopped, Bitbook had disappeared from the ether. I was among them, and of course you too. This vacuum could not remain around the books, since even then there were more and more people who acquired reading materials digitally every day. There were, of course, different reasons for this even then, because there were people who would have financial problems buying as many books as they wanted, and there were people who were almost out of reach for geographical reasons (people living abroad). That's why I decided to take my destiny into my own hands and founded Libranet.

In the beginning, there was obviously a lot of work behind it to make the site work, no matter how technically. My team at the time, who helped the process, and the newly formed moderator team were a big help in this. The moderators of the old site were equally shocked to notice the disappearance of the site and immediately rushed to help us with the new site as well. Although times change and not everyone is with us anymore, their work is unquestionable, what they helped then, and it still accompanies the operation of the site today. Personally, I remember doing two things back then in January: I was either creating program code out of smoke and caffeine, or there was a discussion about what needed to be solved and in what order. Of course, these discussions were always followed by a regular drunkenness, which our bodies wouldn't even be able to handle today, but then we were still young, fresh, and 20 kilos lighter. Maybe we were even prettier... :D
During more than a decade (jeez, that's harsh to describe), we faced a lot of challenges. The reservation was not smooth. Our domain was terminated (no-ip.org was terminated), we also had to deal with server problems. We had problems with it even last year, but our system administrators did a great job in the summer, and since then I've been knocking, but the system is playing beautifully. And yet, over the years, they tried to bury us several times. They said we didn't understand all this (which was partially true), they said we were bored (apparently not). We have therefore struggled over the years with shutdowns, servers, domain changes, overloading, but so far I dare to say that we have successfully overcome the obstacles. Personally, I had a few sleepless nights because of these, but you all gave me the strength, encouraged me, and didn't let me give up. You are amazing when help is needed and the encouragement comes without questions or words, or even the financial help to change a server!
Of course, all our efforts would have been in vain if you, who use the site, had not come to this. The site can be most powerful when its users enjoy its fruits and read, listen to music or just talk to each other. Over the years, more than 1,000,000 messages have been exchanged on the site, some 10,000 forum posts have been made, and at peak times the site has to handle over 300,000 connections per hour. These are brutal numbers and be proud of yourself because everyone is there.
The uploaders worked countless hours on the site so that you can read and listen to music on calm days. It is also brutal to say that more than 100,000 materials were made available, and this involved filling out the same number of data sheets. It's a lot of work to organize everything afterwards. I don't know whether to salute this or congratulate. In any case, if you click on the thank you button more often, it will be good for them too, I would like to encourage you to do so ;)
Whenever there is something wrong, the whip cracks on the moderator team. They are the heroes who are between two fires at the same time. Anyone with any problem on one page can (and can) turn to them, be it a problem with uploading, an error on the page, or just the continuous, monotonous grind of daily moderation. Everything that goes on the site is checked by hand while they do everything else. They are the gatekeepers for me too, if they get stuck technically, they give me the information if it needs to be solved. I wouldn't dare to say that I always did this with the greatest enthusiasm, but we find common ground, and when we manage to meet, everything is resolved anyway in a couple of loose evenings, with delicious food and an awful lot of alcohol. Did I mention that the site could really be supported by a Scotch whiskey producer? :D
Although these are big things, the whole story cannot be completed with them. This year as well, our supporters are the ones who provided the financial background for the whole thing. Without them, we wouldn't have a server on which we could do it all. The list would be very long if it were not for data protection reasons that there is no list. Unfortunately, we are not yet there to get enough of the extra money, but you should know that without your support, all of this would be nowhere.
I am proud of the fact that I manage to keep such a cohesive and functioning team together, and for 12 years we have been able to continuously add a little value to the gray sea of ​​everyday life. I hope that our next dozen years will also be like this, where, despite the difficulties, we will reach the goal of making reading and listening to music accessible to everyone.

Thank you for being here, for helping me realize my dream, and for being patient with my nonsense!