My family is going to be making a big move soon. We have a lot of books, but unfortunately we’re not going to take the majority of them with us.
I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for making a digital catalog. We’ll be selling/donating/gifting most of them but I wanted to have at least a record of the stuff we had. I’m hoping for some sort of setup where I can just scan the barcode or something and have it pop up in a catalog.
I’d also prefer to do some free setup and not have to pay a subscription or a device.
I’ve heard of Libib and it recommends using a device or scanner app. I found one scanner app but it looks like a paid subscription.
Any advice? Should I just go old school with a spreadsheet?
by Dorianscale
4 Comments
LibraryThing’s app has a scanner function.
Ive used Librarything forever, and it does exactly what you describe. There’s a free version and a paid version, but it was very inexpensive when I joined.
You can do this in Excel with an inexpensive barcode scanner from Amazon. You can get Excel to find associated data by simply scanning the barcode. Use an AI function to assist. it is super easy and takes seconds per book.
I used Book Buddy. Added a custom field to designate which bookshelf/room books were in. Exported an excel of my collection to share with people who might want individual titles (I was moving also.)
I can’t remember if it was free, but it definitely wasn’t a subscription. And I bet it wasn’t much because I wouldn’t have wanted to pay much.