Online Bookshelf?

naporeon

Some of you may remember the question I posted about some custom headers that appeared (falsely, it turned out) to be refusing to right-align for me, in my blog. I got some great advice on that, and thought I'd try again with a considerably less technical--but still website-related--question. Here goes....

I've got a truly massive collection of books. I would say that a conservative estimation would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000-2,400, with roughly a quarter of those currently on shelves at my apartment. What I'm looking for is some sort of web-based system for generating a catalog that I can access online.

Ideally, it would feature an ability to generate custom tags (e.g. "Roman History", "My Old College Textbooks", etc.), and must offer lookup by ISBN, as well as the ability to create book listings for works published prior to the advent of that system. In a perfect world, it would have some sort of front end, configurable for display on personal websites or blogs, as well as cover art displays that can be disabled; these bits aren't necessary, though.

I have seen a couple systems that have most of the features I'd like, but are missing things I absolutely need (such as the ability to add pre-ISBN titles).

Any suggestions would be lovely!

Jasconius

I do not know if you have a Mac but

http://www.delicious-monster.com/

is uhh... pretty damn awesome.

I do not know of a web/pc equivalent.

The Cat

I think endnote has an online version, or there's refworks. I haven't used that one myself, but apparently its pretty cool. They advertise as a research tool (like, somewhere to keep all the papers for a project), but all the essentials you need for any library indexing system are there.

naporeon

Hrmmmmm...great suggestions, guys.

Does anyone around here use any of these? I am more than happy to pay for a service or program, but I'd kind of like to hear some personal experiences with them before I throw down the cash.

The Cat

Well, I've used Endnote all through uni, and its pretty decent. The only things I don't like about it are its interface with Office (makes things simpler my ass, and I've seen it eat all the references in a friend's final-year thirty page report before) and the limited number of formats for citations, but if you only have books and such that won't matter at all - its just a pain cataloguing e-media, basically. The online version has a free trial, though.

Lewisham

The Cat wrote: »

Well, I've used Endnote all through uni, and its pretty decent. The only things I don't like about it are its interface with Office (makes things simpler my ass, and I've seen it eat all the references in a friend's final-year thirty page report before).

Hello LaTeX

OP: Delicious Library is very good, but then you already knew that. I'm guessing you don't have a Mac.

Grid System

Take a look at librarything.com. You'd have to pay if you wanted to catalogue all of your books - you can do 200 for free - but I think it offers all the features you're looking for. I know it does ISBN searches and you can search Amazon, the Library of Congress, and "choose from 82 other sources around the world". It also lets you add books manually.

I don't have any personal experience with them, but there are a number of different tools available for embedding the lists in a personal webspace.

flatlinegraphics

well, someone made a web app that does something like what you are looking for:
http://goodreads.com/

otherwise, um... php/mysql? you can run it locally. and since from your other thread you are going to have to learn php and database stuff for your job, it might be a good project to learn on.

find a cue cat on ebay, and you can scan books right into it. ad a isbn lookup (possibly using an amazon api), and you might be able to just sit there and scan your collection and be done.

kevbot

I'll second LibraryThing... I only have 200-300 books, but it's still really nice to have. The mass imports work great, and it works with both modified and standard CueCat scanners.

naporeon

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys.

I think I'm going with LibraryThing for the moment, since it allows for LC Catalog lookup.

I'll be installing MediaMan the next time I'm home for more than 30 minutes. I'll let everyone know if I like it.