Everything I've learned about cataloging a home library.
From spreadsheets and ISBNs to classification systems, book databases, apps, and photographing shelves.
What are you trying to solve?
Most people arrive here because something about their shelves has become annoying. Start with the problem you actually have.
I need to catalog hundreds of books
CATALOGINGWhy scanning books one by one gets painful at scale, and the different ways to get an existing collection into a catalog.
I need a system for my shelves
ORGANIZINGDewey, Library of Congress, broad subject groups, or simple shelf locations: which approach actually makes sense at home?
I want to understand ISBNs
BOOK DATAWhat an ISBN identifies, why book records can still be messy, and what to do when the metadata does not match the book in your hand.
I need the right software
APPSSpreadsheets, barcode-based catalogers, databases, and shelf-photo apps solve different versions of the same problem.
I have older books without barcodes
CATALOGINGAn ISBN is useful, but it is not required to catalog a book. Older books just need a different route into the catalog.
Dewey, Library of Congress, or just your own system?
Most home libraries do not start with a system. Books accumulate where they fit and where they make sense. At some point, though, remembering where everything is stops being a very good database.
Read the guide →The subject gets bigger surprisingly quickly.
Cataloging touches the physical shelves, the data behind each book, the software you use, and the systems people have been inventing for a very long time.
Cataloging
Getting the books into a useful catalog in the first place.
Organizing
Connecting the catalog to the shelves where the books actually live.
Tools & Data
ISBNs, metadata sources, book databases, covers, and lookup tools.
Apps
What different kinds of home-library software are good at — and where they fall short.
History
How people kept track of personal libraries before spreadsheets and apps.
I started with my own shelves.
I wanted a catalog of the books I already owned, but I did not want to pull every book off the shelf and scan it one by one.
That problem eventually led me to build Velato. It also pulled me into ISBNs, book metadata, classification systems, OCR, shelf locations, and a lot of questions I had never expected to care about.