Hi, I’m Max, and I’m a book addict.

[mithriltabby]

My darling obsessivewoman got me a handy piece of software called ReaderWare for my last birthday, which can use a CueCat bar code scanner to identify books, music, and videos. In a fit of getting organized, I used it to catalogue my CD collection and my video collection. With those lesser tasks accomplished, I turned to cataloguing all the books in Maine Coon Manor.

Turns out that the two of us have accumulated over 6,000 of them.

Last year, hypothermya introduced me to a rather interesting Web 2.0 site called LibraryThing. I had a go at entering a few books, but I just didn’t have the stomach for the daunting task of entering it all by hand. After getting my 3000+ works of fiction into the ReaderWare database, though, I checked back at LibraryThing, and discovered that they have a bulk upload feature that takes ISBNs. So I dumped the whole database up there.

ISBNs are not entirely unique identifiers, so it’s necessary to go over these things with a fine tooth comb. I’ve also been collecting relevant hyperlinks such as author home pages, weblogs, and wikipedia pages, though those are only in my ReaderWare database as there’s no useful way to put them on LibraryThing as yet. And I’ve finally finished my first pass through my fiction section, and I think I have at least 99% of the books in the house now in the database. (Next thing to do is to start tagging all the works that have won or been finalists for various awards.)

You can look at my LibraryThing profile, see the linear catalogue, or try the author cloud or tag cloud as alternative ways of navigating the collection. Feedback from my manga-literate friends on the manga collection is particularly welcome; I’ve been going by Wikipedia’s notions of shōnen and shōjo, but would appreciate the insight of the connoisseurs. obsessivewoman’s collection is mostly tagged cookbook and mystery; she hasn’t had as much time to get into the detailed tagging as I have.

Comments

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

This is great, thanks for posting it. I'm very eager to do this to palecur and my collections now.

[ladydairine.livejournal.com]

Vonyar bought ReaderWare a few months ago. So far, we have scanned all of our DVDs. CDs are next because the books are going to take a much longer time and right now, we don't want to try to start that.
We found that only one of Vonyar's lazerdisks was able to be scanned, but it wasn't very hard to enter the rest of the collection. We are also going to have to enter the record collection, but that is relatively small.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

You have the time to do this. I don't even dare take the time to look at it, much as I'd like to. So you'll be spared my professional critique. However, glad you're enjoying it.