Shopping for library software.
Jul. 6th, 2015 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nonethefewerWe have ~5k physical books and ~1k electronic books. We want basically what the NYPL has: the ability to catalog all of these books, and also the ability to download the electronic books.
LibraryThing has a generally decent interface for cataloging books. That's what we use for our physical books. Calibre is good for storing, reading, downloading, and cataloging ebooks. I could use Calibre to catalog the physical books, since it's possible to add an empty book. I could even automate this process. I could also use LibraryThing to catalog the ebooks, and have a separate site for downloading said ebooks. (Calibre has the ability to run a website all on its own.) However, I want both. Something like what the NYPL has, where I can search on Diane Duane and get a list of books in various formats, and also a download link for the ebooks.
Purposes, in no particular order:
* When we're out in the world and we see an interesting book, we want to know whether we own it already and in what format. For example, if we have the ARC version of some book but not the published kind, Rose knows they can bring home the latter, and then we do a straight replace.
* It would be really nice to be able to showcase our full library.
* We'd like to allow guests to access the ebooks. (And ourselves, of course.)
Notes on the existing solutions:
* In LT, a book can be part of more than one series. A good example: The Romulan Way, by Diane Duane and Peter Moorwood. It's #35 in the TOS series, and #2 (of 5, I think) in the Rihannsu sub-series.
* In LT, I can list contributors (cover artists, &c) as well as primary authors/editors. Perfect for my anal-retentive self. (Example, plus a link to ISFDB so you know what I'm on about: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages)
* LT's tagging has improved; they have suggestions based on prior taggings. Calibre's tagging is vaguely annoying because the box is too small. (Hence custom fields, since we use tagging to indicate format, book type, and any special notes.)
* I can add custom fields in Calibre. For my library, I have ISFDB ID, OCLC, format, and pages. LT has the last three (format as part of tagging), but I can only put the ISFDB ID in the private comments field, which is subpar. I want it to be a linkable thing.
* More importantly, if I could have that be linkable, then I could link to ebooks we own from within LibraryThing. Alas, that would take scripting, which doesn't hold up as well on a tablet, where (as far as I know) I cannot run Tampermonkey(-like) extensions.
This is sort of the master noodling post on library-management needs. Please feel free to suggest software or ask questions or whatever.
LibraryThing has a generally decent interface for cataloging books. That's what we use for our physical books. Calibre is good for storing, reading, downloading, and cataloging ebooks. I could use Calibre to catalog the physical books, since it's possible to add an empty book. I could even automate this process. I could also use LibraryThing to catalog the ebooks, and have a separate site for downloading said ebooks. (Calibre has the ability to run a website all on its own.) However, I want both. Something like what the NYPL has, where I can search on Diane Duane and get a list of books in various formats, and also a download link for the ebooks.
Purposes, in no particular order:
* When we're out in the world and we see an interesting book, we want to know whether we own it already and in what format. For example, if we have the ARC version of some book but not the published kind, Rose knows they can bring home the latter, and then we do a straight replace.
* It would be really nice to be able to showcase our full library.
* We'd like to allow guests to access the ebooks. (And ourselves, of course.)
Notes on the existing solutions:
* In LT, a book can be part of more than one series. A good example: The Romulan Way, by Diane Duane and Peter Moorwood. It's #35 in the TOS series, and #2 (of 5, I think) in the Rihannsu sub-series.
* In LT, I can list contributors (cover artists, &c) as well as primary authors/editors. Perfect for my anal-retentive self. (Example, plus a link to ISFDB so you know what I'm on about: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages)
* LT's tagging has improved; they have suggestions based on prior taggings. Calibre's tagging is vaguely annoying because the box is too small. (Hence custom fields, since we use tagging to indicate format, book type, and any special notes.)
* I can add custom fields in Calibre. For my library, I have ISFDB ID, OCLC, format, and pages. LT has the last three (format as part of tagging), but I can only put the ISFDB ID in the private comments field, which is subpar. I want it to be a linkable thing.
* More importantly, if I could have that be linkable, then I could link to ebooks we own from within LibraryThing. Alas, that would take scripting, which doesn't hold up as well on a tablet, where (as far as I know) I cannot run Tampermonkey(-like) extensions.
This is sort of the master noodling post on library-management needs. Please feel free to suggest software or ask questions or whatever.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-07-07 05:11 pm (UTC)But I suspect that trying to shoe-horn in a classification system none of the primary users can be expected to know is outside the "sensible" range.