Keeping track of your home library.

What an interesting mix of books you have! I've met a couple of the fantasy authors you seem to like during the last few weeks. Elizabeth Kay is a lovely lady with whom I've enjoyed a good laugh on a few occasions recently.

Mary Hoffman asked me for an autograph (for a neighbour) a couple of weeks ago - that's one I won't forget for a while!

I see you like historical fiction. Have you read anything by Celia Rees at all?
 
I use Book Collector from Collectorz.com - it allows me to keep my collection on my own PC for local reference and if I want to add stuff to something like Library Thing, I can do so easily by exporting all the ISBN numbers :) I looked at a few other book collection apps but this is the one I liked the best - mostly because they provide several blank fields/values for me to track my own information and because of their detailed support for a series of books (such as series name, number etc.) Of course, your mileage may vary.
 
Nice mixture, Lucien.
My problem with using this would be the time it would take putting in the backlog - but some time, when I've a week to spare.......:D
 
I'd never entered ISBN's before and started a week or so ago. After I got through about two shelves of stuff, I was too tired to go on :p Of course, if I get it all entered in some day, it would be so much easier to update Library Thing and other online collections ...
 
I use the "store it in my head and then forget what I own" method. It's worked well, in terms of living up to its name, but I think it might be time for something a bit better...

While I'm pretty lax in cataloging my reading books, I did create a database using Filemaker Pro to keep track of the books in my collection. I created custom fields -- author, title, publisher, condition, copyright, publishing date, cover art -- and it can sync up with my palmpilot when I'm traveling to book shows or conventions.

The downside is that it only exists on my computer -- I can't publish it online or anything like that. So it's hard to "share" my library with others.
 
Mark Robson said:
What an interesting mix of books you have! I've met a couple of the fantasy authors you seem to like during the last few weeks. Elizabeth Kay is a lovely lady with whom I've enjoyed a good laugh on a few occasions recently.

Mary Hoffman asked me for an autograph (for a neighbour) a couple of weeks ago - that's one I won't forget for a while!

I see you like historical fiction. Have you read anything by Celia Rees at all?
Click to expand...

Wow! I'm so jealous of you. You've met Elizabeth Kay! I figured she'd be a nice lady. Yes I've read Pirates! by Celia Rees and my sister has been telling me to read Witch Child.

Dr. Atomic said:
I use the "store it in my head and then forget what I own" method. It's worked well, in terms of living up to its name, but I think it might be time for something a bit better...

While I'm pretty lax in cataloging my reading books, I did create a database using Filemaker Pro to keep track of the books in my collection. I created custom fields -- author, title, publisher, condition, copyright, publishing date, cover art -- and it can sync up with my palmpilot when I'm traveling to book shows or conventions.

The downside is that it only exists on my computer -- I can't publish it online or anything like that. So it's hard to "share" my library with others.
Click to expand...

At work I use FileMaker Pro, everyday I even have nightmares about it sometimes (odd I know). It's so odd you bring that up because I was considering purchasing it for my home computer for the very reason you use it :D . However, I really like LibraryThing.
 
Dr. Atomic said:
The downside is that it only exists on my computer -- I can't publish it online or anything like that. So it's hard to "share" my library with others.
Click to expand...

If you capture the ISBN in your FileMaker Pro database, then it should be fairly simple to export a list of just the ISBN numbers and then have an online catalogoue add your books by ISBN. Of course, if you're not capturing the ISBN, then you have some work to do :p
 
Well, my collection is made up of vintage books, none of which have ISBN numbers -- so that aspect of LibraryThing wouldn't do me any good, anyway. However, if I decide to catalog my reading books, I think I will make an ISBN field that I can then export for online use -- good idea! Thanks for suggesting it.
 
I have used Access as a database and Excel as a mirror database so that I can add books as and when to keep then in chronological order then export them into Access as it is easy to do a search in Access.
 
I just throw mine in a big box, and put the box in storage every month or so. Then when I go to the storage unit, its like getting a surprise because I have no idea whats in any of the boxes!

:D
 
I don't have as many books as I'm sure most of you do (around 500), so I keep track of them in my head. I haven't yet had any instances of buying a book I already own; I do a pretty good job with the catalogue in my head.
 
Stormpirate said:
I don't have as many books as I'm sure most of you do (around 500), so I keep track of them in my head. I haven't yet had any instances of buying a book I already own; I do a pretty good job with the catalogue in my head.
Click to expand...

The same goes for me. Still, one of these days I really should get to cataloguing which books I've got...:)
 
My husband has a barcode scanner that he's trying to get working for some time now. He wants to be able to keep an online library of all the books I have, the computer books / art books of his, and all our DVDs. Then, when we're out, if we have a question about a book or DVD, we can pull the page up on one of our phones and see.
 
This thread has spurred me to actually catalogue my books, finally. Especially as I'm getting quite protective of my books now and don't want any of them to go wandering! And also, I can't stop buying new ones recently, so my collection is starting to get quite extensive.

Nothing fancy though...just typing them all onto a sheet in Microsoft Excel. Ah, it's made me realise how many unread books stand on my shelves!
 
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