Keeping Track of Your Books

 Here's a different kind of post for today.  After seeing in several book groups people asking for suggestions on the best way to catalog their collections I wanted to know what all was available.  In my professional life I’m a librarian.  I’ve used many different kinds of software to catalog library material throughout my career.  I’m always looking for something to use in my personal life.  With over 12,000 books and even more DVDs, CDs, and Videogames I want something similar to what I’ve used at work without the price tag.  Forever ago I started using LibraryThing and Goodreads but every so often I look into seeing if there’s better options available.  Here is what I’ve found and hope this will help other bibliophiles out there looking to organize their books and other media.

Book Catalogue – This is an open source app to catalog your books.   You can sort by author or title.  You can also update your list by ISBN or by scanning the barcode.  You can create multiple bookshelves for you books so if you like to separate some of your books out you can. 

Book Crawler – The only information I have for this is from online as I don’t have an Apple product to test it out.  It looks like it has a lot of things that are awesome and gets some pretty good reviews.  However, it does look like you will hit a limit for the number of books until you will need to pay for the app.  Nowhere does it say how many or if it is a one time charge.

Collectorz – This is an interesting site.  You have to pick between Movies, Books, Music, Comics, and Games.  Each require their own subscription service.  The subscription service ranges from $14.95 up to $29.95 a year and you can pick which works best for you.  You do get what you pay for and the app itself looks amazing. It also looks very similar to what a library would use to catalog their books.  The downside is I want to be able to catalog all my books, movies, music, and everything else together without paying individually for them.

Delicious Library 3 – This is another Apple only app.  This has several ways to customize your collection.  It says it is unlimited and they will give you a trial run with the app.  However, you will have to pay eventually.  It looks like the creators are the only people you can ask for help and it does look like they are answering questions so bonus.  The one downside is that it is app only and not allowed on the web.    

GoodReads – I’ve used this site for a little over 10 years. I like it to track what I’m reading or listening too.  But as a way to track what I own it doesn’t work for me.  The app is just like the website and they are both easy to use.  There is a way to store your whole library with them but you can only add your books to it.  I want something I can add everything too and track which format I have it in. You can add different shelves and tags but those add up really fast.  Plus they have sooooo many ads and particularly on the app it can hinder my use of it.  They do have some interesting statistics for what you’ve read and they do break it down by pages, publication year, and overtime your reading stats. 

Libib – I started to create a library with this company as the app looked amazing.  The biggest downside for me was the max collection for the free version is 5000.  If I just wanted to catalog my physical books this would work for me for a short time.  However, as I have a book collection that is well over 10,000 and I am not willing to pay for a catalog this site was out for me.  Once you throw in DVDs, CDs, and games it just wouldn’t work for me.  If I wanted to pay for the pro edition it would be about $100 a year.  This isn’t that expensive and would be a good option for a small library.  It looks like it is more for managing your collection and not anything else like reviewing.  If you have a small collection or want to pay the app does make this a better option as the app was very user friendly.

Library Thing – I’ve used this site forever and I love most things about it.  The one thing I am not a fan of is the app.  The app is very basic and it is awesome to have my collection at my fingertips to not buy duplicates.  However, anytime you add anything it is so complicated to update tags that it is easier to just use the computer to add items to the collection.  They allow you to add your own barcodes to your items.  And they do have a cute little cat barcode scanner.  Overall, this site has everything I need and want with the most versatility to do things with the items in my collection.  I do check out other sites when I find them since the app is so bad that if I found a site that allowed me to do everything I want and had a better app I would switch in a heartbeat. 

Litsy – Looks like it is a really good site to use to track your reviews, blurbs, and saving your favorite quote.  You can import your records from Goodreads.  When I tried it, it didn’t go so well.  It wasn’t the whole of my collection but just the books I’ve read and there is slightly more than 2000 books that imported and another 600 that wouldn’t load for whatever reason.  Once the books are in the system there is no way to organize them to easily find something.  When you get to the thousands of books and are trying to find a specific book your best option is to search for it.  At that point you can add your opinion.  Overall, I probably won’t be using this again as I already have a site that does everything this one does better.

I am sure there are a ton more sites and apps that can used.  There are some sites and apps that are better at tracking your read list with reviews and others that are better at organizing your collection.  Which works for you?

	Book Catalogue	Book Crawler	Collectorz	Delicious Library 3	Goodreads	Libib - Free	Libib - Pro	LibraryThing	Litsy
Catalog Limit	Unlimited	Limited	Unlimited		Unlimited	5000	100,000	Unlimited	Unlimited
Cloud Sync			Depends			X	X
Statistics		X	X	X		X	X
Reviews		X		X	X	X	X	X	X
Import/Export	X	X			X	X	X	X	X
Detailed Notes			X		X	X	X	X
Tagging, Grouping, Basic Editing	X		X	X		X	X	X
Edit all Fields	X		X				X	X
Dates Read			X		X			X
Review	X		X	X	X			X
Barcode							X	X
Track Loans	X			X			X	X
App	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Cost	Free	2.99	Various	Various	Free	Free	$99 yr	Free	Free
Customization				X
Android	X		X		X	X	X	X	X
Apple		X	X	X		X	X	X	X