Friday, June 18, 2010

Do You Catalog Your Books?

During Bloggiesta I came to the important realization that I have an insane amount of books. They are stashed all over the house, stored in boxes, and it's because of my lack of organizational skills that I usually forget what I have. So, I went on a mission to figure out how to list them all on my computer. I'm a mac-user, and a good friend suggested I use the program BookPedia. She's a fellow bookaholic, so I thought I'd try the demo version (it can list 25 books).

Basically, all I have to do is hold the book's barcode up to my built in camera, and it scans everything in. It searches Amazon, and puts everything into an iTunes-eque library (see the small, blurry photo to the right). At first I had a hard time scanning things in, and found that the DVDPedia (the DVD version of Bookpedia) was easier to scan with. Still, it's made my life a bit easier.

So, I was wondering whether anyone else had cataloged their books?

12 comments:

Tales of Whimsy said...

I don't but it's definitely an interesting option :)

Briana said...

That sounds awesome! Too bad I don't have Mac. I actually just use GoodReads to keep track of my books. Every book that's on my GoodReads, I own.

-Briana

Madigan Mirza said...

This looks... amazing. What an incredible way to make cataloging a book collection accessible and easy to do for the layperson.
As a librarian, and former cataloger, I just don't have the energy to do any book organization when I get home. Still... if I was going to start, I'd have to look at an option like this.
Thanks for sharing!

Unknown said...

I don't but it sounds like one hell of a system! If I were to have my very own library or a room with a ton of books I would certainly do so but at the moment I don't know or have enough books to do so!

Great blog, I'm really glad I visited!

Unknown said...

I use goodreads, but that program looks like a lot of fun.
P.S. Found your blog through Book Blogger, and I love it. This community is so fun.

Dahlia (TheBookShopaholic) said...

Too bad it's not free.

Katie said...

I use Goodreads but I know all of my books are not listed. I just forget what I have. Now I am super sad that I don't have a Mac because that is an awesome program. I am planning on buying one for school though so I will have to get that program. =]

Charleydog said...

I have 3,719 books catalogued and others waiting to be processed. I use Microsoft Access as my database and creat reports upon demand. I use the Library of Congress to obtain cataloguing information not availabel in the book. All books are shelved; read in one area and unread in another. I have a large studio on top of my garage so I am truly lucky. The house has too many windows to house a library unless I use black-out curtains.

pboylecharley AT hotmail DOT com

Jenny N. said...

I don't think I have that many books so I don't catalog them. I do use goodreads to keep track of how many books I've read and my to read list.

Anonymous said...

I use goodreads to catalog mine. I used to use a database too, but then realised it was a waste of time to catalog them in two places.

Jennay and Luke the Pup said...

Ooooo...this sounds like fun. I'm am organizing nut (or I try to be). I'll have to look into this one. I'm kind of excited now...yay : )

Wolf Bear said...

Me too: "They are stashed all over the house, stored in boxes, and it's because of my lack of organizational skills that I usually forget what I have."

I've been reading and collecting books for 40 years (book hoarder). Began a process of first finding the books, putting them in one place, alphabetizing them. Whew! Decided to kill two birds with one stone . . . have always loved working in "WordPerfect" (literally hated having to use "Word" at work), set up my own personalized database system that lets me put as much or as little about each book in one place. Two years later, found Good Reads . . . a much better system, but decided to stay with WordPerfect because at last tally, had logged in over 14,000 books.
--Vonda
2much2reid {at} comcast {dot} net

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