Suzanne115 Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 Hi - I need to organize my books. I have bought duplicate books because I forgot about books that I own. I also put books in bins for storage and forget where they are. I save most of my regular books because I have a 3 year old who will be able to use them later. I know I have seen posts about online services and software that people use for organizing their books, but I searched and couldn't find anything. If you use a book organizing system, what do you use? Do you like it and recommend it? Can you scan the books or do you have to type each one into the software? I would appreciate any help that you can give. Thank you, Suzanne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladydusk Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 I use LibraryThing.com. It uses ISBNs ... Scan or type. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moxie Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 With LibraryThing, is there any way to add searchable tags? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amy Jo Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 Library Thing has tags. You could also look at Good Reads (it has shelves instead of tags) and Shelfari. In addition there are programs & apps. I was using Library Thing, but my subscription (which is cheap) ran out. I'd like to switch to Good Reads, because they have a free scanner app for Android, but I'm not sure how to organize all the books I have that I haven't read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzanne115 Posted July 18, 2013 Author Share Posted July 18, 2013 Thank you both for these suggestions. I'm going to take a look at them. Suzanne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 I use Readerware, have for years. They now have a mobile app for it too I think, haven't tried it yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishboneDawn Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 If you have an Android smart phone then Book Catalogue is an excellent app. I tested quite a few before I settled on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TraceyS/FL Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 I"ve used Readerware and loved it (my mobile app back then was for the Palm!). I bought Book Crawler and will use that once we get the living room taken care of - the desktop app is Mac only i think. Which reminds me of something I need to put on another list! LOL!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemongoose Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 I use book collector. You can add a scanner so you do not have to enter in everything. It is searchable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzanne115 Posted July 18, 2013 Author Share Posted July 18, 2013 Thank you all for these suggestions. Several of them look great. It will be hard to decide which one to pick. Suzanne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 Little tip. This may be on a lot of them, don't know, but with Readerware I can drag and drop books in. This is really helpful with the older and oop stuff. I can find the book on amazon and drag it in myself. I have a barcode scanner, but the cheap ones are so persnickity, I usually just use the numeric keypad on my keyboard and enter them. If I were say getting SL cores or that kind of thing, where all the books were new and would have bar codes with no stickers on them, then I'd use the scanner more. I've got about 7K books in my system btw. At a certain point you just pick one and stick with it. I changed one time (from something else to this), but since then I've just stayed put. The new stuff is probably terrific, I just don't have time to re-enter or fiddle with exporting databases. I find simple is adequate for me. I like having pictures, searchability, and the drag and drop. As long as I have that, I'm good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzanne115 Posted July 18, 2013 Author Share Posted July 18, 2013 I need to be able to group my books. I have too many to keep out so I need to store a lot of them in bins. I would like to be able to have a list for each bin. Then, I can easily find the book I need instead of buying it again. Is grouping like this available on any or all of the mentioned software/apps? Thank you all so much. Suzanne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 I've never tried to do that, but it wouldn't be hard to do, even if the program you chose doesn't have a location field. It's just a database. Pick one of the spots and put in your terms, then you can search that field. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoverdavid30 Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 Readerware... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skeeterbug Posted July 19, 2013 Share Posted July 19, 2013 I need to be able to group my books. I have too many to keep out so I need to store a lot of them in bins. I would like to be able to have a list for each bin. Then, I can easily find the book I need instead of buying it again. Is grouping like this available on any or all of the mentioned software/apps? Thank you all so much. Suzanne I'm using the Book Crawler app. If I wanted to do what you describe I would add a tag for each bin. So then I could pull up the tag for 'Bin #8' and see everything in that bin. That tag would be in addition to other tags, so one book could be labeled 'ancient rome' and 'magic tree house' and 'bin 8'. I'm sure that any of the apps with tags would allow you to do the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemongoose Posted July 19, 2013 Share Posted July 19, 2013 Book Collector has a location field. You can put whatever you want in there. I also sort my extra books in bins and I have the homeschool books and not homeschool books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzanne115 Posted July 19, 2013 Author Share Posted July 19, 2013 Thank you all so much! This thread has been so helpful to me. I am still trying to decide which ones to try, but many of the ones you mentioned sound like they would serve my purposes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted July 19, 2013 Share Posted July 19, 2013 I've used Goodreads with the mobile phone app (love scanning everything). It lets you tag things in different categories. The downside is that you have to keep up with it every time you get new books in. I never got around to this, so I have probably 2/3 of my library entered, and now it's all out of date. :tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beaners Posted July 19, 2013 Share Posted July 19, 2013 I've used Goodreads with the mobile phone app (love scanning everything). It lets you tag things in different categories. The downside is that you have to keep up with it every time you get new books in. I never got around to this, so I have probably 2/3 of my library entered, and now it's all out of date. :tongue_smilie: Hey! Me too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doodle Posted July 19, 2013 Share Posted July 19, 2013 I have been using the Book Crawler app on my iPad and like it. Books can be put into "collections" and also "tagged". My collections are basic subjects such as 'History'. Then the book will have added tags such as 'US History', 'Presidents', 'American Revolution' etc. Your collection can be sort any number of ways. By author, series, collection, tag etc. I like that with each book entry there is a picture of the book cover. If the book is older or the wrong cover is imported with the ISBN, I simply do an image search on Google and find the correct picture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giraffe Posted July 19, 2013 Share Posted July 19, 2013 LibraryThing. I tag with the "usual suspects" (genre, subject, time period) but also with country (I have books in two different ones) and am thinking of adding another tag that indicates shelf or box/bin as well. I second previous posters that the key is to keep up with it. I am actually starting over after a huge purge. My current LT lists and my actual inventory no longer match. Time to fix that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StartingOver Posted July 19, 2013 Share Posted July 19, 2013 I bought a scanner, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006LVO56W/ref=oh_details_o02_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 , but some have phones that will work. My Kindle will not scan with Librarything.com . I had the same issue of buying multiple copies of books. I love that I can take the Kindle when out and search by tag or title to determine what books I want or need. I have a wish list on Library thing too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skeeterbug Posted July 19, 2013 Share Posted July 19, 2013 The downside is that you have to keep up with it every time you get new books in. I never got around to this, so I have probably 2/3 of my library entered, and now it's all out of date. :tongue_smilie: Get the kids to do it! Every time a new book arrives, let it be their responsibility to make sure it is scanned. This is what I'm planning to do once we have all our books scanned in, anyway. We'll see how it goes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzanne115 Posted July 20, 2013 Author Share Posted July 20, 2013 Get the kids to do it! Every time a new book arrives, let it be their responsibility to make sure it is scanned. This is what I'm planning to do once we have all our books scanned in, anyway. We'll see how it goes. That's funny! I was just looking at the scanner that someone posted and my 11 year old saw it. She totally wants to scan books for me! Suzanne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted July 20, 2013 Share Posted July 20, 2013 Get the kids to do it! Every time a new book arrives, let it be their responsibility to make sure it is scanned. This is what I'm planning to do once we have all our books scanned in, anyway. We'll see how it goes. Sometimes I'm needing to hide the books from the oldest, so he won't read them all before we get to them in school. :lol: Like the World Wars book for Sonlight Core E. I know he will love it. I'm saving it so he will be excited when we get there. After that, it will be on the shelf, and he can read it a gazillion times. ;) He has absolutely no clue that it's even in the closet right now. Bwahahahaha! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amy Jo Posted July 21, 2013 Share Posted July 21, 2013 Psst. How do you handle organizing in Goodreads? It seems much more oriented to what you've read. What about library books? Do you have a huge "unread" shelf? Use two accounts - one for books owned and one for books read? I'd love to use Goodreads, but I can't wrap my mind around what shelves I need. Care to share your setup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted July 21, 2013 Share Posted July 21, 2013 Psst. How do you handle organizing in Goodreads? It seems much more oriented to what you've read. What about library books? Do you have a huge "unread" shelf? Use two accounts - one for books owned and one for books read? I'd love to use Goodreads, but I can't wrap my mind around what shelves I need. Care to share your setup? I tagged things as owning them or not. I don't add library books to Goodreads, though you could. I have Library Elf remind me when my library books are due, so I don't feel a need to track them in any other manner (love Library Elf!!!!). I also have things tagged as being for a particular curriculum and whatnot. You can have multiple tags. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzanne115 Posted July 22, 2013 Author Share Posted July 22, 2013 I just wanted to thank everyone for all of your help. I decided to go with Readerware. I went with it because it was very easy to figure out and technology is not my strength. Thanks again, Suzanne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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