Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: An 'Ex Libris' For My Books In a Digital Age?
New submitter smalgin writes: While I cannot boast an extensive library, it keeps growing every week. I share the books I like the most with my friends and acquaintances. Unfortunately, some of them are sloppy and forget to return my books, so to speak. I would like to put some mark, sticker or a stamp (Ex Libris) on my books to make them recognizable later. However, living in a digital age (blah blah yada yada) I cannot help but wonder how I could improve the ex libris beyond an ink stamp on a title page or a glued-on postcard-sized monstrosity some libraries use. Has anyone tried using RFIDs to identify his books? Please share your experience.
I would recommend you look at Book Collector from collectorz.com (http://www.collectorz.com/book/). I have been using it for years and I am very happy with it.
Basically you use it to catalog your books. You can use the barcode on the book to automatically look up and enter the book (I use a barcode scanner to do this, but think you can use a phone or just type the number in manually). It hits a bunch of different sites to grab all the information for the book (cover photo, copyright info, etc...).
Once you have the books in the database you can use it to loan books out. Enter who you are loaning it to when you check it out to them, and check it back in when they return it. Works very well for me and the extra benefits of cataloging my books are numerous. Chiefly it stops me from buying duplicate books when I go to a used book store and see something I don't remember having.
Whenever you loan something to someone, take a picture of them holding it with your phone. Then you'll know who to track down if you want it back.