My Home is a Library!

As of late, my home has resembled a used book store.

We had to move all of my living room furniture to accommodate a new TV, and in order to move my 3 book shelves, they had to be emptied.  For you Vancouverites, imagine MacLeod's Books re-locating to your living room! Impossible to know what was in there, and a daunting re-org task that required attention.

It's nuts! I love my books, and every summer I herd a fortune of books into my house from Garage sale-ing (yes it's a verb) all summer. Naturally I have found myself with some dupes, which require me going to another of my favorite used books stores to re-sell them.  A step I'd rather skip by avoiding the dupe purchase to begin with!

I tried to catalogue my bookshelves manually, writing each book in a wee notebook by author. I lost my steam after awhile though, and in the end always forgot the frakkin' notebook at home.... resulting in more dupes. 

When I bought my iPhone last year it was the big fix I was looking for! A way to catalogue my books electronically and always have the list with me! I don't leave the house without my phone... because like many people I love my iPhone... it's everything I've ever wanted in a device, and I NEVER get lost with it! (whoops, tangent)

Wouldn't you know it though, another hurdle presented itself. I couldn't simply type the books into the notepad. That's a waste of time, and so far as I know you can't 'sort' or 'search' a note.  I've been looking for approximately a year for an appropriate app for me to catalogue my dang book collection. Ideally it would also catalogue other items, DVD's, PS3 games maybe? I didn't want to be greedy... after all it's the books I'm concerned with not duplicating. 

Well the wait paid off. I've found this app 'Home Library' (http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/home-library/id399196568?mt=8)

Home Screen - 'Home Library'

The app is only $0.99 cents! A far cry from some of the $4.99+ apps that seem to offer only one option for cataloguing. Best part of this beautifully designed app is that I can scan just about every book in my collection and it will (just about) instantly input the book into my collection with a picture of the cover (if available; applies to every option), a brief description, cost, publication date, etc!!! Information I never thought I'd actually care about! Alllllll there for me to reference! Manual entry is an option, and if it doesn't find it by scanning you can do a keyword search.

I've scanned 200 books already and it proposes that my collection is worth approximately $3,000.00 ?!?! Holy crap. That's only two of my 5 book shelves.... I'm certainly rich in book.

The cherry on top is being able to keep track of what I lend out, as well as e-mailing an excel spreadsheet to myself to back up my collection. WOOT! I just love this frickin' app. There are bugs to be fixed up, and it crashes from time to time, but my info is always there to greet me upon re-opening the app. (Understandably I'm over working the poor thing).  This thing's only gonna get better, and then it's gonna get more expensive.

I found it, I love it, I recommend it if you are a collector and want to centralize your content for referencing! :) Happy scanning!