Sunday, June 5, 2011

Have You Ever Bought A Book Twice - Or Wondered If You Already Owned A Book ?

I haunt bookstores and book sellers on line. I am, and always have been, a bibliophile. There have been times when I walked the aisles of a book store and happily snapped up a copy of a book that sound just so good that I had to have it - only to discover that I already owned it. Now, if you love in an area that allows you to return or exchange the book that is not so much of a problem - just perhaps a small irritation. Then again having to go back to a book store seems like a good thing to me ! When you lie far away from any stores though - having a second copy of a  book can prove to be more frustrating.

I have wanted to be able to catalog  the books in my ever expanding library - but the thought and tediousness of the work seemed overwhelming to me - and of course I always figured that I had better things to do with my time that meticulously catalog my books manually. Enter the new age of scanners. There is a system of cataloging your books using a scanner. I found one program but it was $49.99 - plus you had to have a scanner and some additional software. Too rich for my pocket!

Enter Book Crawler. It is a nifty app that allows you to scan, sort and catalog your personal library.  Chiisai is the app developer and you can find them at their website (highlighted link) or at the app store for all of $1.99. It works in conjunction with a free app call Pic2Shop. You scan in the bar code from your book and voila! You can create genres for your collection and sort in a number of ways. I am beginning by scanning in several - a dozen or so - at a time. Next will probably go shelf by shelf. My cataloging concern was answered in a low cost, easy and very effective way. Love this app !

no affiliation etc etc .. I am just happy to have found this little gem of an app

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