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

[Pete (big-pete) (253496)]

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

-- Pete.

Re:BookCrossing

[goodEvans (112958)]

I prefer the Dead Milkmen's solution here:

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

Government Solution!

[eldavojohn (898314)]

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

Um...

[DorkusMasterus (931246)]

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.

Delicious Library

[jnd3 (116181)]

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!

That's exactly what I'm doing!

[RhettR (632157)]

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!

[Scaba (183684)]

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.

bibliophile

[Noksagt (69097)]

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

[Eil (82413)]

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

[croddy (659025)]

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..

[onion2k (203094)]

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..

[Mondoz (672060)]

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.

Why software?

[smoor (961352)]

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.

Have kids and you won't care anymore about trivia

[xxxJonBoyxxx (565205)]

"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:

[SeeMyNuts! (955740)]

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]

have you tried Library Thing?

[Glog (303500)]

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

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

[Muad'Dave (255648)]

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.

Why make this harder than it should be?

[slashname3 (739398)]

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.

Re:Three answers

[ivan256 (17499)]

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

[jmilne (121521)]

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.

Re:The Dewey Decimal System

[TheWanderingHermit (513872)]

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

[drinkypoo (153816)]

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

[oneiros27 (46144)]

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)

Re:Closed Source but reliable

[peragrin (659227)]

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

[jnik (1733)]

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].