4 ms·

Honest question: what’s the benefit of cataloguing books? I’m surprised so many people do it. I have 3 tall bookshelves of books but don’t really feel the nee

by chubot 5y ago

Honest question: what’s the benefit of cataloguing books? I’m surprised so many people do it. I have 3 tall bookshelves of books but don’t really feel the need to catalogue them. I sort them by topic and sometimes physical size and it seems fine.

daggersandscars 5y ago
When I had ~1000 books, I catalogued them to avoid buying books I already had and to ease lending them to my friends. Back in the pre-smart phone days, there was a Mac app that used a webcam to scan book barcodes. The author wrote a neat article on how it was better to scan barcodes really fast and throw away the noise than to try to scan the barcode perfectly the first time.
mindcrime 5y ago
I can think of three or four good reasons: 1. To prevent buying duplicates. I own enough books (on the order of thousands) that I can't remember all the ones I own, and occasionally buy something only later to discover that I just bought a 2nd (or 3rd) copy. 2. Insurance purposes. If I had a fire or something I imagine I might need the catalog, photos, etc. as part of my claim process. 3. Related to (2), but if I had to replace a substantial portion of my library, it would help if I had the items in the library cataloged. 4. Locating books. I have enough books jammed into my apartment that I sometimes struggle to locate a particular one. Or even remember if I own a particular title at all or not (see (1) above). A catalog, with notes like "In living room, on bookcase A, shelf 2" or "in office, bookcase Q, shelf 4" would be a huge benefit at times. Even more so for the handful that would fall into the "Boxed up and moved to storage locker on 08/16/2019. Box labeled BR549" category or whatever. I have 3 tall bookshelves of books but don’t really feel the need to catalogue them Well sure. If I only had 3 bookcases of books I don't know if I'd bother either. But when you get into the multiple thousands of books, it becomes more important.
gjm11 5y ago
My main reason is the same as mindcrime's and daggersandcars's: I found that every now and then I'd buy books I'd forgotten I already had, and it was annoying. At one point I thought there would be value in recording where in the house each book was, but it soon became obvious that there wasn't so I stopped. If space considerations required some of them to be in boxes, it would become valuable again. (I do tag each book with what it's about, and shelve things by subject, so in some ambiguous cases the catalogue might be useful for finding books. Hardly ever has been, though.) It's occasionally useful when I know there was a book with such-and-such in the title but can't remember the author or the exact title (though not very useful since usually in such cases it's also possible to find the relevant shelf and browse until I find it. But you can't grep a bookcase.) And if I didn't have a list I'd wonder every now and then how many books are actually in the house, and waste time estimating. As mindcrime says, this isn't something that has much value for a few bookcases of books, but the value increases as the number of books grows.
DantesKite 5y ago
Agreed. It's largely a waste of time, unless you genuinely enjoy doing it.
spaztastical 5y ago
I have a backburner idea of a VR library room. It would be neat to have a database I could sort how I liked (for example, by fiction/non, then publication year -> but series use the AVERAGE single year for the series) That sorting is a mess on its own. It also needs a way to pull spine images or have a computer go from bad spine pics to simplified colour-matching digital ones. Other options - finding when you have a room with books from multiple homes (blended families, inherited), insurance, or for a "why is book 7 of the series here" massive sorting project with a good audiobook for company.

by chubot 5y ago

daggersandscars 5y ago

When I had ~1000 books, I catalogued them to avoid buying books I already had and to ease lending them to my friends. Back in the pre-smart phone days, there was a Mac app that used a webcam to scan book barcodes. The author wrote a neat article on how it was better to scan barcodes really fast and throw away the noise than to try to scan the barcode perfectly the first time.

mindcrime 5y ago

I can think of three or four good reasons: 1. To prevent buying duplicates. I own enough books (on the order of thousands) that I can't remember all the ones I own, and occasionally buy something only later to discover that I just bought a 2nd (or 3rd) copy. 2. Insurance purposes. If I had a fire or something I imagine I might need the catalog, photos, etc. as part of my claim process. 3. Related to (2), but if I had to replace a substantial portion of my library, it would help if I had the items in the library cataloged. 4. Locating books. I have enough books jammed into my apartment that I sometimes struggle to locate a particular one. Or even remember if I own a particular title at all or not (see (1) above). A catalog, with notes like "In living room, on bookcase A, shelf 2" or "in office, bookcase Q, shelf 4" would be a huge benefit at times. Even more so for the handful that would fall into the "Boxed up and moved to storage locker on 08/16/2019. Box labeled BR549" category or whatever. I have 3 tall bookshelves of books but don’t really feel the need to catalogue them Well sure. If I only had 3 bookcases of books I don't know if I'd bother either. But when you get into the multiple thousands of books, it becomes more important.

gjm11 5y ago

My main reason is the same as mindcrime's and daggersandcars's: I found that every now and then I'd buy books I'd forgotten I already had, and it was annoying. At one point I thought there would be value in recording where in the house each book was, but it soon became obvious that there wasn't so I stopped. If space considerations required some of them to be in boxes, it would become valuable again. (I do tag each book with what it's about, and shelve things by subject, so in some ambiguous cases the catalogue might be useful for finding books. Hardly ever has been, though.) It's occasionally useful when I know there was a book with such-and-such in the title but can't remember the author or the exact title (though not very useful since usually in such cases it's also possible to find the relevant shelf and browse until I find it. But you can't grep a bookcase.) And if I didn't have a list I'd wonder every now and then how many books are actually in the house, and waste time estimating. As mindcrime says, this isn't something that has much value for a few bookcases of books, but the value increases as the number of books grows.

DantesKite 5y ago

Agreed. It's largely a waste of time, unless you genuinely enjoy doing it.

spaztastical 5y ago

I have a backburner idea of a VR library room. It would be neat to have a database I could sort how I liked (for example, by fiction/non, then publication year -> but series use the AVERAGE single year for the series) That sorting is a mess on its own. It also needs a way to pull spine images or have a computer go from bad spine pics to simplified colour-matching digital ones. Other options - finding when you have a room with books from multiple homes (blended families, inherited), insurance, or for a "why is book 7 of the series here" massive sorting project with a good audiobook for company.