Cataloguing books...

[fajrdrako]

Dec. 13 2007: Do you use any of the online book-cataloguing sites, like Library Thing or Shelfari? Why or why not? [Or . . . do you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking to?? (grin)]

If not an online catalog, do you use any other method to catalog your book collection? Excel spreadsheets, index cards, a notebook, anything?

Yes, I catalogue my books. I don't catalogue my books obsessively. Or methodically. Or consistently. I catalogue them on a casual basis. Occasionally. When I feel the urge to dust and I think, "I've got books I never catalogued, don't I?"

I don't use Shelfari. I joined Shelfari. I keep getting perky, friendly messages from them telling me that my friends also own The Lord of the Rings (I know) and the Dunnett novels (yes, I know). Mostly I ignore Shelfari. It looks too... colourful. Too complicated. Makes me feel lazy. I'd rather be reading than cataloguing, anyway.

To catalogue my books, I use MS Excel and I type in all titles and authors when I find the time. Sometimes also publication dates, when I feel excessively inspired. I started with the fiction. I don't think my non-fiction colection has ever entirely been catalogued. I like to think I mostly know what I have, and I mostly know where it is, and that might be stretching the definition of "mostly" but it seems to... mostly... work. There isn't a lot of rhyme or reason to it. Dunnett novels in one place, favourite hardcovers in another, biographies of English Romantic poets on a certain shelf, biographies of Julius Caesar in another... It isn't elegant, but I cope.

I'm not even going to start to talk about the question of whether I catalogue my comic books.

Comments

[beccaelizabeth]

I use LibraryThing and a CueCat scanner. I think it's called that anyway, it's a little cat thing that reads the barcodes. LibraryThing then turns that into a complete listing. It's awesome.

Books with no barcode are in a big heap on another shelf. Actually I'm thinking of giving them away. Er, not only because they're more of a bother to catalog. I mostly haven't read them either. Inherited books. But then I get to thinking that some of them might be treasures, so on my shelf they stay.

I like LibraryThing, it remembers stuff for me. I can look up how many of a series I've got, or if an author sounds familiar cause somewhere in the house there's books by them. For a while I stopped buying books that weren't new releases, on account of I had no idea if I owned them already. No longer that particular problem.

My comics... I had a full list of them, done with a typewriter, very carefully. Not carefully enough though - I checked it once I thought I'd completed my Justice League collection and I had some doubles and some gaps rather than a complete run. Woe.

Of course any comics you can buy on amazon, the collected ones, they scan in just like smaller books. Win.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I love those books that are comic book collections, or TPBs, or "Bookshelf Format". I wish I could afford more of them. If I had the patience to wait till my favourite series had finished story arcs, I could, but no, usually I'm really, really impatient....