Catalog Your Books with…Books
by Steven Rossi on January 21, 2009 in Books, Technology
I discovered an application the other day and couldn’t resist sharing it. I’ve been looking for a cool program to catalog the books I own or have read. I’ve considered purchasing Delicious Library, but I decided that it was a little more intense than what I was looking for. The other day, I came across Books, a free application that does just what I was looking for. Using a built-in camera, Books detects the bar code on your book, scans it, and retrieves data on that book from Amazon or any other source which has it. You are then able to fill in all sorts of details about ownership of the book, condition, etc.
What’s even more exciting, the author of this application is working on a whole new project which will create a platform to allow users to customize the ways that they use Books. Read about that – it should be a really great piece of software.
To be honest, I scanned about 50 books right when I downloaded the application simply because I liked the little “blip” sound that was played as each barcode was scanned. If for no other reason, this app’s worth a shot. If you’re looking for a free alternative to more expensive cataloging software, Books is for you.
by Rock Ballads
On January 25, 2009 at 2:10 am
Isn’t there an app like this for the iPhone / iPod Touch? The guy who sits behind me at work was talking about it last week. I just searched and found ScanLife, but I’m not sure that is what he was talking about.
by Steven
On January 25, 2009 at 9:15 am
I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be surprised since the technology is already there, but I haven’t seen an app that does this yet. ScanLife is kinda similar, from what it looks like. I think you use ScanLife to scan proprietary barcodes to which you assign meaning. I guess you can use it to easily transfer information. I believe Microsoft has developed or is developing a similar application, although I’m not sure it’s for the iPhone.