Local storage to track open access book history

[mekarpeles]

Feature Request

Problem / Opportunity

Proposal

Breakdown

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[Aayushdev18]

Hi, @mekarpeles the problem statement in this issue is not very clear.
From my understanding, Open Library currently does not persist
open-access book viewing history across sessions, especially
for logged-out users. Once the page is refreshed or the browser
is closed, previously opened books are lost.

I can help by first proposing a clear problem statement and
a breakdown for implementing this using localStorage.
Please let me know if I can proceed.

[mekarpeles]

Hi @Aayushdev18, you're right, this issue needs further definition.

The idea is that currently the Open Library platform can provide patrons history of their loans (if patrons so choose) but no such record exists for open access items.

This feature would allow patrons to see (in a transient non-persistent/tracking way) what books they've recently viewed or opened / started reading (whether borrowable or open access).

This would probably be a javascript change that would listen/intercept any borrow or lead link and add its openlibrary edition ID to a localstorage queue with some datestamp.

The first version of this feature would be a prototype / proof of concept and likely show up on the "My Books" page under a Reading History section. A carousel of books would be shown by taking the edition IDs from history in localstorage and querying them in solr

[Aayushdev18]

Thanks for the detailed clarification @mekarpeles , that helps a lot.
Based on this, I can propose a concrete breakdown for a first proof of concept:

1. Capture events when a user clicks “Borrow” or “Read/Open” and extract the edition ID.
2. Store entries in localStorage as a bounded queue (e.g. last N items) with {editionId, timestamp}.
3. Deduplicate entries while preserving recency.
4. Read from localStorage on the “My Books” page and query Solr using the stored edition IDs.
5. Render a simple “Reading History” carousel under My Books (open-access + borrowable).
6. Handle edge cases (clearing storage, private browsing, storage limits).

If this direction looks reasonable, I’m happy to flesh this out further or start with a small prototype PR.