Dear Lazyweb

[fengshui]

What is the best online book cataloging site these days? I have a bunch of my books cataloged in Readerware, which works all-right, but I'm thinking about going through and re-syncing my collection and my catalog, and that seems like a good time to consider a software switch

Comments

[pxr5]

we've been using librarything.

[jss1113]

Seconded, though I haven't updated it in a while. I keep my primary/authoritative source equivalent to a card catalog in Excel.

[pxr5]

We keep primary in Librarything, but backup to xls format regularly from it (just in case.)

[jss1113]

Well, LibraryThing when I first jumped on it didn't support some of the metadata I track (right now, what box the book packed in; historically, which bookcase and shelf the book is on), and I never put the pr0n or periodicals into it, so that data's only in Excel. I really should resynchronize the two but it's not managed to get to the top of the to-do list.

[jovianconsensus]

Another using LibraryThing, which I've posted about before. It seems to match your checklist.

[heathey]

Question: If I recall correctly, you've already scanned most of your books? What would you suggest for someone like me with no scanner thingy who is just getting started cataloging?

[fengshui]

The cheapest solution is to buy a cuecat from Librarything. However, while the cuecat works, it's not the best scanner. It's LED based, which means that you have to put the device right against the barcode, scan it back and forth, and hope that it gets it right. The device that I recommend is the Symbol CS1504. This scanner is totally portable so you don't have to bring your books to the computer, you can just walk around to the books, scanning them one at a time. It's also laser based, which means you don't have to rub the scanner across the book, trying to get just the right speed for it to scan. Unfortunately, the CS1504 costs about $80, which is a lot more than the cuecat.

Note that a bar-code scanner will not get all of your books. For example, a lot of older books don't have bar-codes, and many don't even have ISBN numbers. Those you'll have to sit down at a computer to input.

[lhn]

That's pretty much been what runs us down every time we start trying a home cataloging project. Scanning is one thing, but neither of us has it in us to keep manually entering the many, many unbarcoded books. (It doesn't help that the old paperbacks with no or useless barcodes start with long runs right at the beginning of the alphabet. (Anderson and Asimov, I'm looking at you.) I think prilicla got as far as the second or third bookcase last time, but...

Though we were using Readerware, since the idea of uploading our holdings to the cloud for public viewing violates what lingering shreds of a sense of privacy we're still managing to hold onto.

[prilicla]

I think prilicla got as far as the second or third bookcase last time, but...

Oh, if only that were true. I think I pooped out in the middle of James Blish's Star Trek books.

[once_a_banana]

Cool, all these smart people using librarything, I will have to check it out! I keep worrying that I'll start to entirely forget about many of the books I've read, and that would be sad. (Of course, it's a lot easier to remember about the books I actually own). I often have the same worries with movies, but at least now with my Netflix account I can make sure to enter a rating for most everything I see (I also keep a stack of each year's theater ticket stubs).

[emacsen]

I use LibraryThing also.