Why I’m Scrapping 'Genres' (For Now) and Betting on AI Instead

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

I recently sat down to build a standard feature for my library app: Categories and Genres. It seemed like a no‑brainer—every library app has genres, right? I wanted to be able to categorize my books so that searching for “textbook,” “computer science,” or “programming” would return everything relevant. The goal was classification—grouping books with similar attributes to make them easier to find.

But as I started mapping out the logic, I hit a wall. I realized I was solving a problem I didn’t actually have.

The Problem with Specificity

I ran through real‑world scenarios. Let’s say I have 300 books in my library, and because I’m a software engineer, almost all of them are related to programming. If I implement a “Programming” genre and then search for it, 500 books are going to pop up. How useful is that? It’s just noise.

There is a principle in organization that says eventually more organization leads to less productivity. You can push categorization to a limit where it becomes chaotic or just plain busy work. If I have to manually tag every book with “Java” or “Software,” am I actually making my life easier? Or am I just doing something for the sake of doing it?

Defining the Real Use Case

I had to stop and ask myself: How do I actually use my library?

I realized that I don’t “browse” my physical library for information. If I need to know about Rust data types, I don’t walk over to my shelf and scan for a promising spine. I go to Google or ask an AI and find the best resource externally.

Once I know what book I need, my question becomes very specific:

• “Do I have this book?”
• “Where is it?”

My primary use case is inventory management, not discovery.

Scenario: I’m on Amazon or at a bookstore and see a book.
Question: “Do I already own this?”
Action: Search the ISBN or title.
Result: Yes/No and shelf location.

For that workflow, genres are irrelevant. I don’t need a “Non‑Fiction” tag to tell me if I own Clean Code.

The Pivot: Organization vs. Search

There is one area where categorization matters: the physical shelf.
Right now, my library is chaos—a biology textbook next to a self‑help book, leaning against a Java manual. I eventually want a “Barnes & Noble” experience at home—biographies here, history there, math over there.

This is where the feature set shifts. I don’t need categories for searching the app; I need categories for organizing the room. Even then, manual categorization feels archaic. Why should I manually tag a book as “Algorithms” or “Puzzles”?

The Future: AI‑Driven Shelf Organization

Instead of manual genres, I want to use AI for semantic clustering.

• Scan a book → AI suggests where it belongs based on the topology of my current library.
• If I buy a book on Puzzles, I don’t want to create a whole new “Games” section for one book.
• The AI could analyze the content and say: “Hey, puzzles are conceptually similar to Algorithms. You should put this on the Algorithm shelf.”

This dynamic, intelligent organization is what I’m looking for.

The Roadmap Change

So, do I need categories or genres right now? No.

However, I can’t just start dumping books into the database without an organizational system. Loading 300 books now would mean pulling them all off the shelves later to reorganize when the AI feature arrives—double work I want to avoid.

New plan:

• Pause on mass data entry.
• Build the AI Shelf Organization feature.
• Use the AI to organize the physical books as I enter them into the system.

It’s a different problem than I started with, but it’s a much more useful solution.