Book Catalouging Software

[Darren]

I keep meaning to create a datbase of all my books and where they are. I forget which ones I've got. Does anyone use or know of good book cataloging software.

I've come across these so far.

Collectorz.com Book Collector (looks pretty good).
Readerware (didn't like this one much).

Darren

 

[Darren]

I've pretty much decided that I'm going to go with Book Collector from www.collectorz.com I've got the trial version and it's looking pretty good.

 

[Ben Holiday]

I use just plain old MS: Excel or Word. Though after looking at the collecorz site I'm thinking of converting. If you do get it please post how well it works it looks like it has some cool features like loan manager. How or where does it get the cover images?

 

[Ell]

I just downloaded the trial version of Book Collector this weekend. Seems pretty easy to use with lots of room to customize lists.

Darren, are you entering all the data yourself or using the Online Query option? I found that some of the ISBNs I entered couldn't be found. e.g. Spadework by Timothy Findley.

Ben, it appears they get the cover images from Amazon. You can also customize - if you don't want the image they give you - by downloading another image to your hd, then copying it into your database.

 

[Ben Holiday]

That's cool I'm surprised Amazon lets them do that. I think I'll just enter all the info myself it may take longer but at least all the right version info will be correct. Now I have a reason to use my scanner lol.

 

[Darren]

Book Collector

Ell, I've entered a few ISBNs and queried amazon.co.uk - seemed to work OK so far, but I've only entered a handful of books to test it out. You might be interested in trying out the export to HTML feature so you can upload a list of all your books to your site. It uses the XML language for its templates rather than the standard HTML.

Amazon does make its images and data availble to online queries (as do a few other online stores). Feel free to download the cover from our booklibrary if you want. It may not be the cover for your edition as I haven't set it up to store detailed info about different editions and formats of books (that would be a huge task, although might make our library a valuable resource for collectors - what do people think?).

There does seem to be a lot of options in Book Collector and I haven't really explored its full potential yet. I certainly prefer it to Readerware and BookCat.

I've started a category in the directory for book software if anyone wants the sites.

Darren.

 

[direstraits]

I've been meaning to post this, and I keep forgetting. I've the freeware version of yet another book cataloging proggy called BookOrganizer. The latest version of the software (version 3.0) is shareware for 19 bucks, but what I have is the version before it became shareware (which is version 2.0).

It allows for all the usual features of inputting information, but one thing that's conspicuously missing is the automatic retrieval of info from Amazon using ISBN. But hey, you can't beat the price.

The setup file for the freeware version is 2.44MB, anyone who wants it can PM me.

You can visit the website here. Remember you can't get the freeware version from the website anymore though.

ds