Personal Library Management Musings

[swordmage]

Now, the one downside to LibraryThing, near as I can tell, is it's just books*. Well, that and the fact that there seems to be no checkout feature, which would be quite nice.

These two things combined are actually rather important to us - we've a decent DVD and a modest video game collection. Not to mention, well, a fairly varied electronics collection and a bunch of other stuff.

Now, I've got a LibraryThing account, and I picked up a CueCat as well. now i just need to upload stuff... I'm more than happy to have my library up on there, simply for the ease of other people to view. However, one of the things domnall wanted when we talked about getting a record of everything using software was that he would like a checkout feature - we frequently lend out DVDs and it's nice to know who's got what.

I may have found the answer to my problems.

Biggest downside - this little baby is Mac only. And I'd have to modify the CueCat to scan, though I can use Alia's built-in camera to scan...

Tempting, tempting...

*I am well aware that people *do* have DVDs and such uploaded.

Comments

[raventhourne.livejournal.com]

I have a tag called "checkout" and then I make a note of who has it in the comments. works well for me.

Movies..I don't have those catalogued... and hadn't really thought about it.

[swordmage.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea! *makes note*

Dom and I are both fair movie buffs, and quite inclined to lend our collection out freely. Seeing as they fill almost two large Ikea Billy bookshelves, and that's not counting what we've burned, and growing fairly regularly, it's probably for the best that we do it eventually. *grin*

Besides, I'm not averse to having a full list of everything we've got for insurance purposes, should we, god forbid, ever need it.

[elinor-dear.livejournal.com]

I have y'all's copy of "The Devil's Advocate." I enjoyed that entirely too much! Let me know when a good time to stop by and drop it off will be. :)

[reynier.livejournal.com]

isn't there a borrow request feature on LibraryThing? Admittedly, I haven't used it much, but I'd figured I'd just have everyone in RL request online so that I could keep it electronically tracked. Sadly, that's a simple bit of code that they're missing out on *not* to include.

[swordmage.livejournal.com]

I honestly have no idea if there is or isn't. Hrmmm...

[swordmage.livejournal.com]

Likely on Sunday, but no idea what time. *grin*

Thanks.

[shade-scribbler.livejournal.com]

Besides, I'm not averse to having a full list of everything we've got for insurance purposes, should we, god forbid, ever need it.

Oh yeah - that is a good idea! We still really don't know all of what was stolen. You think you know what you have, but just sit down and try to list everything you own without being able too look, including exact title and author, and what version...

The police may have been able to recover some of our stuff if we had been better able to list out what we had.

On the checkout Idea - have you considered a good old fashioned excel spreadsheet for check outs? You could list by person and reference the look up number for the book along with the date lent.

[swordmage.livejournal.com]

We've considered using Excel, just not yet gotten around to actually *doing* it.

At this point, I figure we may as well admit defeat and just get software.

[churchofwonk.livejournal.com]

Excel is ok, or you could kick your resident VBA geekboy in the arse and have me code you something in Access...