Solving the Home Library Problem?

zgrossbart asks: "My wife and I have about 3,500 books. We can't find anything. All the books are in random order. We want to find a solution for organizing our books. We have a barcode scanner, but I'm not sure the best way to use it. I want a solution that is easy to maintain going forward and makes books easy to find. I also want the data in an open format. I'm think about using MySQL right now, but I'm open to other suggestions. What software do other people use to organize their home libraries?"

BookCrossing

If you love something, set it free [bookcrossing.com]!

-- Pete.

Re:BookCrossing

Soooo many books that are probably being tossed in the garbage at McDonalds, I want to scream.

Well, I work at a Helpdesk, so me wanting to scream is nothing special, but still.

Anyway, the idea of keeping your books is that, if you desire something to read, you can reach into a shelf and there you will find treasure. As well as being able to look upon a story with either new insights into the story (multi-volume fantasy epics like Steven Erikson's, frex) or new insights into yourself.

Re:Throwing it ALL away...

It IS wrong to throw away anything that still has a useful life.

Yeah but it's Piers Anthony...what else are you going to do with it?

Re:BookCrossing

On the Macintosh there is a program called Delicious Library that lets you use your iSight web cam to read in the bar codes. It then looks up the product at Amazon and stores it in your "library." You could scan in all your books (and movies and CD's) and sort them by Author or my Title to see which you like best. Then file them accordingly. It gets the book cover off the web too and gives you a virtual book shelf. The software also lets you check-out the book and track that activity. http://www.delicious-monster.com/ [delicious-monster.com] This program pretty much rules.

Re:BookCrossing

I prefer the Dead Milkmen's solution here:

"If you love somebody, better set them on fire..."

Re:BookCrossing

If you love somebody, better set them on fire...

Give a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life...

Re:BookCrossing

I believe this has already been taken care of... It's called the Dewey Decimal System.

Gak!

Library of Congress is better--the call number for each book is unique. With Dewey, you have a subject heading, and all the books within that subject are basically unordered, as far as the system goes. If you can't find the author of a book, then, what do you go by? Just the title?

Still, your personal system depends largely on how you usually remember your books. Do you usually say 'I had a green book about so high and maybe four or five hundred pages long'? If so, you might find it most intuitive to have your books physically ordered by appearance and use a database to browse by subject or author. Or do you usually do research on a particular subject? Then going by the Library of Congress system would probably be best. Or if you binge on particular authors, you might prefer categorizing authors by field and then arranging books by author.

Disclaimer: I am a librarian, and I work in a university library using LoC call numbers.

Government Solution!

Dear Mr. Guy Montag [wikipedia.org],

It has come to our attention that you have a surplus of books stored at your residence.

We have already dispatched firemen to alleviate you of this horrible affliction--fire trucks will be there within the hour. For you see, special-interest groups and other "minorities" objected to books that offended them. As a result, books all began to look the same, as writers tried to avoid offending anybody. This isn't enough, however, and society as a whole decided to simply burn books rather than permit conflicting opinions.

There are other unpleasantries that books cause but there is no need for me to go that far into detail.

As you can see, your search for a digital Dewey decimal system is unneeded. And it is quite peculiar that anyone should have as many books as you do. Do not worry, though, we are a free public service!

Thank you again in your cooperation and trust that our services will be a valuable solution to your growing literary problem.

Sincerely,

Karl Rove [wikipedia.org] Senior Advisor & Chief Political Advisor The Bush Administration

Fire At Presidential Library

CRAWFORD, TEXAS -- A tragic fire on Sunday destroyed the personal library of President George W. Bush. Both of his books have been lost.

A presidential spokesman said the president was devastated, as he had not finished coloring the second one.

Closed Source but reliable

I bootlegged a copy of AV Cataloger [avcataloger.com] and liked it so much that I bought it. I recommend it to all, but it is a Windows-based program.

I'm sure you can write your own, but AV Cataloger hits all the sites to gain information -- even Amazon for books. It also helps to keep track of what you loan to people (my mother is the worst thief my latest report shows!).

I know /. readers don't like closed-source Windows-only software, so I'd welcome an F/OSS solution just like this. Until then, this is a worthy purchase.

Re:Closed Source but reliable

Closed source but for The Apple platform

http://www.delicious-monster.com/ [delicious-monster.com]

It does everything for you. It works with either a scanner or you cna manually enter numbers.

The big solution though is physical sorting of the books. You have to keep them in place and return them to that place, being as anal as your old high school librarian about where the books/dvd's/etc are returned to.

Re:Closed Source but reliable

It's also slower than molasses in January in Maine
Which end of Maine? Molasses probably isn't much slower in southern Maine than in Massachusetts, where molasses in January has been clocked at 35 MPH [wikipedia.org].

Re:Closed Source but reliable

It works with either a scanner or you cna manually enter numbers.

I think I see a problem with your solution...

[badum-ching]

Um...

I think you lost most of the slashdotters when you started with "My Wife..." People are googling this "wife" to see what they can find out about the phenomenon. Once that dies down, then maybe you'll get some results.

Re:Um...

For those of you curious.....A wife [wikipedia.org] is commonly [reference.com] refered to as: [google.com] A woman joined to a man in marriage; a female spouse........or so dictionary.com tells me.

You may remember several famous wife's.....like Princese Leia and Marge Simpson.


I'm thinking this post will hurt my karma.....

....and I'll proablly give up at life if this gets modded + anything, Insightful

The Dewey Decimal System

Seriously, the Dewey Decimal System has always worked for me. Unless you're running an actual "Go-ahead-and-check-stuff-out" library out of your home, the barcodes and MySQL seem like total overkill.

Re:The Dewey Decimal System

This is a good point. There's no reason in going hi-tech with scanners and bar codes when simpler solutions can do the job. Maybe that's the problem -- you're looking for a hi-tech solution to a lo-tech problem, so you're forgetting things like sorting by category and alphabetizing by the author's last name. I don't use the Dewey Decimal System, but I sorted my books years ago. I have fiction divided into several groups (sf & fantasy, literature, drama...) and the rest are grouped by subject matter and eact section is sorted by author's last name. I made sure the shelving arrangement allowed for adding a lot of books along the way. When done, I also had a good sized pile of books that were left over from college or from my ex-wife that were ones I'd never need or want to read, so I took them to the used book store for credit and that helped, as well.

Who needs scanners and bar codes? Libraries have kept much bigger book collections organized for centuries with less tech than that.

Re:The Dewey Decimal System

The problem with using the Dewey Decimal system in a residence is that home users may not have room to line up books by author. Books come in multiple sizes, but an individual shelf only holds one [maximum] size of book - and is inefficient with anything smaller. Thus, most home book collections are organized by available space.

People without more shelf space than they can use are much better off just labeling everything where it sits, and returning books to the hole from which they came. The book information can go into a database, and you can search/browse them that way. Some clever software even steals book covers from amazon so you don't have to do it manually.

My final suggestion is to put a barcode on each shelf. You could put one on the bookshelf too, but that's redundant. Scan the shelf, then scan all the books on the shelf. You can accomplish all this with a very simple untethered barcode reader (read: inexpensive.) When you bring the reader back and dump the data, all you have to do is maintain a teensy bit of state (remember the bookshelf info from the scan) and then just stick records in the db as you go. Each book will be recorded as being in the last location scanned. When you get a new location, overwrite the old variables, and keep going. When you get to the end of the data, you go home a winner. Snarf the data out of amazon or similar using one of the many APIs available (up to and including the official one) and you're done.

Dewey is for general libraries

If you have a specialty library, it can be completely useless -- imagine going into a library where every book was filed under '005' (computer programming). If you don't have a general library, Dewey isn't going to be as useful for sorting -- you'll want to look into a specialty thesaurus or ontology for your holdings.

As generalized libraries go, if there's a chance of moving it to a database, I personally prefer UDC [wikipedia.org], due to the way in which is handles sub-topics. (if you had something on the History of British Railroads -- where does it get filed in Dewey? History, European Countries, or Transportation Infrastructure? UDC maintains each of the facets, without needing 3 books of indexing instructions)

Delicious Library

If you've got a Mac (a big IF, I know), Delicious Library [delicious-monster.com] is the way to go. I've not seen its equal for Mac or PC. Barcode scanning (I use a modified USB CueCat), auto-querying for book covers and other information, borrowers, and so forth. Works for books, CDs, video games, DVDs, whatever. Worth every penny!

Re:Delicious Library

Another vote for Delicious Library here.

As for locations, I just made shelves in DL that represent my different bookcases in different rooms in my house, and dragged the appropriate books into each. I'm eagerly awaiting a version of DL that supports 'smart shelves' so I can just use the location info in each book's entry and have those shelves dynamically update.

~Philly

Re:Three answers

With any of those options, and such a small number of books, why not just organize the shelves. Seperate the shelves by category and then organize each shelf by author. That way a quick visual scan of the shelf will give you the book you want in less time than it takes you to query a database, or sit down and open a text file. If you can't remember which title goes with wich author, you certainly don't need your own database for that. There are plenty that exist already and are internet searchable.

There are libraries in the world with hundreds of thousands of books, and you can walk right in and find a book you want. The technical aspects of this are just pure unnecessary geekery.

Re:Three answers

My wife's a librarian, and she would laugh at the idea of using LoC numbers for a collection this small. Dewey's far simpler to figure out mentally for a collection that isn't the size of your local state university's. Heck, for a collection this size, you could go with the standard used book store layout. Just use general catagories and label the shelves so you know what they are. History (maybe break down into Ancient, European, American, etc. if you have a lot of history books), Religion, Science, Math, Art, etc. Fiction could be seperated into genres like Mystery, Fantasy, and Romance, or just organized alphabetically. The beauty is, you probably already know where these books should be catagorized, and you could probably do it all in the span of a few hours. Trying to do anything else, including assigning Dewey call numbers, is going to take a lot more time and effort for not much more benefit.

Start with Fiction Vs. Non

Crazy High Tech Solutions pale in comparison to old - school ones. Divide your book cases up Fiction and Non and categorize from there. Put the books most commonly read on easy to reach shelves. My parents have easily that many and don't run into any problems looking for the book they want to read. It is enough to have a vague idea of where the book is, History of Computing - Non Fiction around shelf 3 and call it a day. How do people find books at a bookstore anyhow?

That's exactly what I'm doing!

I'm actually working on a project that EXACTLY fits your problem. Please check it out at homelibrary [sourceforge.net] at sourceforge. I've only just started the project, it's not very easy to install right now, and there are a few bugs, but I started it with the exact problem in mind.

Re:That's exactly what I'm doing!

I'm actually working on a project that EXACTLY fits your problem. Please check it out at homelibrary at sourceforge. I've only just started the project, it's not very easy to install right now, and there are a few bugs, but I started it with the exact problem in mind.

The word "sourceforge" in the second sentence makes the third superfluous.

Re:That's exactly what I'm doing!

I wish I had modpoints for ya :) Source Forge: The largest repository of software that only works for the author.

bibliophile

Please consider joining Bibliophile [sourceforge.net] on sourceforge, which is a collection of a lot of the other open source literature management software. The effort is fairly informal, but we'd like to share tools for importing, exporting, and cross-site searching.

(FWIW: I'm involved with refbase [sourceforge.net])

easy

Do as the librarians do: divide the books into major subjects and then alphabetize by author. If you need to search by something else, Google is your cross-reference.

oss4lib

There is quite a large amount of open-source software available for library management. A full-blown ILS might be overkill for a personal collection, but I'd suggest checking out Koha [koha.org] and the listings at OSS4Lib [oss4lib.org].

Finding books..

We can't find anything. All the books are in random order.

Have a catalogue on your computer isn't going to tidy up and organise your bookshelf. SQL queries don't work on shelves. Unfortunately.

Re:Finding books..

Exactly. A program is only be as good as its data.
Taking and inventory of what you've got, and recording that data would only mask the symptoms of the underlying problem. The real solution is to organize the books, and eliminate the chaotic random scheme you have now.
With your current setup, your inventory program would be completely dependant on being updated whenever a book is placed on a shelf, which takes discipline for the life of the application.
Taking the time now to organize the shelves will greatly reduce the amount of work down the road, as long as you put your books back where you found them.

Re:Finding books..

You could put an rfid label on every book. This way not only can you find out where a book is, you can also update it's location on the fly as you add new books.

There is no problem I can't solve by spending enough of your money.

Why software?

Unless you have a massive reference collection or are checking books out to friends, why bother with software? The solution to your problem is physical organization. Even if you can't have all the books together, you could organize them using LOC or Dewey, or something and label the locations.

Having to update software everytime you move a book or add a book is just one additional step that doesn't seem to add any value.

When I was 12 I put all my books into PFS:File on an Apple //e. Printed little labels and everything. Why? Because I was 12 and had time to burn... I never looked at it again.

Re:Why software? - insurance

The only advantage I can think of is for insurance purposes. You can backup the file offsite, and keep a list of your library to be replaced in case of fire or flood. A simpler way would be to take high re pictures of your bookshelves, which is what I did with my CD collection.

Really the best way is by author and then google the title or author when doing a search on a subject in a book he thinks he might have on his shelves. Then just find it by the author.

Have kids and you won't care anymore about trivia

"My wife and I have about 3,500 books. We can't find anything. All the books are in random order."

Have a couple of kids and you'll find that trivial stuff like this will be the least of your concerns - most of your possessions will be in random places.

"We want to find a solution for organizing our books. I also want the data in an open format. "

Dewey decimal system? Maybe one of you should pick up a degree in library science.

"We have a barcode scanner, but I'm not sure the best way to use it.

Aim the red light (the "la-ser") at the "zebra stripes" and wait until you hear a beep.

"What software do other people use to organize their home libraries?"

Hell, I read books to get a break from computers. I think if I had that many books I'd donate most of them to the local library. I know I don't have time to reread 3,500 books - there's millions more out there I haven't read yet!

Anything else I can help you with today?

Just use the standard system:

Shelf 1: Romance Novels
Shelf 2: Thermodynamics Textbooks

With all that steam, you can also use that room as a sauna!

--
Nanoscale Woodworking [atributetonuts.com]

Use shelves.

And put the books in alphabetical order.

It's as easy as that. I have about that many, and I can always find things. My mother has about twice as many, and she can always find things. You don't need high-tech solutions, all you need is a certain level of self-discipline.

High-tech solutions are also very brittle. If you have to tell the system whenever you take a book off the shelf or put it back on, then you'll lose books, because at some point you will forget, and the system will have an incorrect view of where the book is. Alphabetical ordering doesn't suffer from this nearly as much.

Plus: alphabetical ordering lets you browse. I don't know about you, but I don't want to figure out what book I want to read next by looking at a database. I want to do it by looking at the shelves, and taking them down, flipping through, looking at the cover, putting them back, etc. That's what books are all about. This is your home, not a warehouse...

software? we dont need no steenkin software

I'm going to have to echo the "why do you need software?" calls.

Fiction vs Nonfiction
Break fiction down into scifi, fantasy, historical, or whatever else applies
Break nonficiton into computers, biography, history, math, science, etc
Then alphabetize categories by author, and label your shelves.
Use some cardboard to make book-sized dividers and write A, B, C, D, etc on them

Readerware

I use Readerware [readerware.com].

Spent a couple of evenings scanning in my books, it then went and got all the details from Amazon etc and I ended up with a nice database of all the books.

It was a bit slack on some of the old and obscure stuff - but if it's in an online bookstore, it will usually pick it up.

I haven't tried it for CDs or DVDs - I use DVD Profiler [intervocative.com] for that.

HTH

T

Bits or bytes?

There are a lot of replies about what software to use to track the books on a PC. That's cool and all, but it is very little help when you have to find a book on the shelves. I happen to own about 1700 books - roughly half the number you have. I think people underestimate the magnitude of the task - assume roughly 1m shelves, 3500 books of 2cm each require 70 shelves - that's over a dozen packed bookcases!

To keep things sane, I added a colored sticker (yellow in my case) to the spine of each book, marked with the first letters of the author's first and last name. Actually I cheat a bit, there are a very small number of categories I use - cookbooks, references - where I put a category icon instead. I put the books on the shelves ordered by the marker. This is loose enough that I don't have to think too much when returning a book to the library, but tight enough I can easily find anything I want. Another side benefit is that when I visit old friends (or mothers :-), my books immediately stick out amongst the pile of books in their own sizable library.

have you tried Library Thing?

Here is the link: http://www.librarything.com/ [librarything.com]. This will help you with the cataloging of the books. As far as organizing, hrmmm, why not organize by color - that's how some women I know would do it :D

Use librarything.com

Just use librarything.com.

      Make a free trial account, enter a few ISBNs, and once you're hooked shell out the few dollars for a full account and get rolling.

      Tim that author is adding lots of data import filters and tagging options and other very geeky features, and an actual librarian has joined the project. (I know, I know: it's amazing seeing a non-commercial software service with a real-live subject matter expert! Just goes to show the author's not a real geek: he admitted that someone else's specialized knowledge might not be replaced by his own prejudices and SWAGs.)

      Go, librarything, go!

Outsource to your local library

Outsource this task to your local library by donating all but your frequently needed reference books there.

Then you can easily browse the shelves, use a computerized search search system, or even ask a live person for help. You'll even been able to find books you didn't even own before. All for free!

For all you 'Just organize the shelves' folks...

How will organizing the shelves help when you're in the middle of a bookstore and are wondering if you already own a certain book? I can't remember all several thousand books I own - having a digital reference on my PDA is invaluable.

DL. Any other library solution is 10 years behind.

That's a total no-brainer.
Delicious Library. [delicious-monster.com] Period. No other Library programm or solution comes even close. It's the companies only product, sells for 40$ and it's a programm that justifies buying a Mac just for the purpose of running it. It's that good.

It has everything you could wish for and loads more. Among the most notable features are bot's that spider the web (amazon, etc.) for meta info on your books based on the barcode (including grabbing cover-pictures), option to use a webcam as barcode scanner and exports to data formats of your choice.

Really, looking any further is pointless. DL+Mac Mini+Barcode Reader or Webcam will take you farther than any other solution you could even dream of.

Why make this harder than it should be?

Separate the books into technical and fiction. Then group the fiction books by author. Group the technical books by subject. Don't make it difficult or cumbersome. Trying to maintain a database of books is not going to let you find them easier. Using barcode readers and other technical solutions will just take more effort and in the end you will still need to organize your books as above.

Delicious Library

Delicious Library is an excellent OSX application for organizing your books, music, games, and movies. It has support for scanning barcodes (even with a web cam).

I use it, myself, and it's extremely useful.

UHF offers some advice

Announcer: "Never before in the history of motion pictures has there been a screen presence so commanding ... so powerful ... so deadly ... He's CONAN THE LIBRARIAN!"

Library Patron: "Can you tell me where I could find a book on astronomy?"

Conan: "Don't you know ... THE DEWEY DECIMAL SYSTEM?!"

Announcer: "Conan the Librarian..."

Library Patron: "I'm sorry, these books are a little overdue..."

Conan: "RAR!"

**Conan cuts library patron in half with enormous 2-handed sword**

Announcer: "Conan the Librarian ... Tonight, only on U."

Consider expansion

If you already have 3500 books, you're probably a collector, not a "tosser" at heart. You need to consider how your system will accommodate future expansion to possibly tens of thousands of books. In no particular order:

• Will your system be so much work to implement that you eventually give up on it?
• Will any data you collect migrate to whatever bibliographic/catalogging software you might decide to use in 10, 20, 40 years?
• How will you handle overflow, when there's a bookcase in front of each wall?
• Do you need to protect your library from silverfish or other book-destroying pests?
• Is your house sturdy enough to support all that weight?

Here are a couple specific strategies that have helped me and my wife:

• We organize books by rough subject headings. We subdivide once a category gets too big to find what we need.
• We catalog the books we have read using Endnote (www.endnote.com). We only record the books we've read, to avoid the overwhelming task of dealing with our whole library at once. We use Endnote because it can import info from the Library of Congress (among other places) and because it can export the database in literally thousands of formats, so "the software that comes next" is a non-issue.
• Overflow goes into boxes. Since we're usually in a hurry when this boxing happens, a good solution has been to take a digital photo of what's in each box; everything isn't catalogged, but it's way quicker to glance through a bunch of pictures than to unstack and open boxes. We invest in super-heavy-duty bankers boxes (available from many online office supply stores)--not the flimsy ones in stock at your typical neighborhood office store.
• We keep our eyes open for good homes for books we no longer need. I'd rather ship a box of books to, say, a school in a third-world country than to give 'em to the local Friends of the Library, where book dealers will cherry-pick the best ones, then send the rest to either a book sale or a landfill.