4 ms·

Ask HN: Home library / digital asset management

3 points by tonteldoos 12y ago

Hi all, I'm hoping for suggestions from HNers that might have the same problem I have. I've been googling and reading reviews, but can't quite find something that will solve my problem completely: My home 'library' has increased in size substantially over the last few years (comfortably into the thousands). It includes: - Books (fiction and non-fiction) - Reference manuals (hardware, software, programming, etc) - CDs/DVDs (video, audio, software, backups) - Hard drives (media, data backup) - Digital media (ebooks, photos, videos, audio) - Various other digital content (saved websites, links, etc) I'm hoping to do just the basic things: - Catalogue everything (ideally with help from ISBN numbers) - Search the library - Track location (physical and electronic) - Track lending to friends - Ideally have it self hosted as a web service - Ideally open source There seems to be solutions that cover the above functionality for physical media, and solutions that cover the above for digital assets (DAM), but nothing (so far) that does all this for both types of media. Do people have any suggestions or ideas? Thanks!

walterbell 12y ago
It may be helpful to list the point solutions that you have found, so people could suggest methods of integration.
- tonteldoos 12y ago
  There are quite a few - I stopped reading after a while, because it wasn't getting anywhere... Ideally I want a single solution (even if it may require a bit of kludging), rather than integrate solutions. This is a side project, so time is limited :-/
  - walterbell 12y ago
    How about Tellico or GCStar, which support custom collections? http://tellico-project.org/ http://tellico-project.org/ http://www.gcstar.org/ http://www.gcstar.org/ For metadata indexing of physically distributed storage (like hard disks), see http://git-annex.branchable.com/ http://git-annex.branchable.com/ . Git-annex could likely be integrated with metadata from GCstar or Tellico.
    - tonteldoos 12y ago
      Thanks! These look very promising (and neither featured on most of my searches). Any idea of something similar with a web frontend?
      - walterbell 12y ago
        There's a Java app called Data Crow, the screenshots imply that it has a web interface, but I haven't tested myself. http://www.datacrow.net/ http://www.datacrow.net/
        tonteldoos 12y ago
        You're a legend! This looks almost exactly like what I had in mind. It really bugs me that these didn't show up anywhere near the top in my searches (and I used quite a few terms). How do you know about these?
        walterbell 12y ago
        I can't quite remember what search terms I used .. Calibre was one, because it's good for doc mgmt. I added "open source". Then a couple of software reviews used the term "collection management". http://alternativeto.net http://alternativeto.net was helpful, after I found one of the apps. Not really sure how I found them :)
        tonteldoos 12y ago
        Just discovered alternativeto.net :) Very useful! Having a bit of trouble getting data crow to work headless (even though it should 'just work'). Might end up delving into code after all :p
ShaneCurran 12y ago
You should take a look at my project, Libramatic (http://www.libramatic.com/ http://www.libramatic.com/). Hopefully it helps and let me know if you have any questions. Thanks :)
- tonteldoos 12y ago
  It looks really promising :) Do you plan on adding catalogue features for items other than books at some point in the future?
RyanLees 12y ago
Take a look at - https://www.assetbank.co.uk/ https://www.assetbank.co.uk/ - It has a lot of features that you have listed and is a self hosted web software. I haven't tested it myself but they have some really good reviews!

3 points by tonteldoos 12y ago

walterbell 12y ago

It may be helpful to list the point solutions that you have found, so people could suggest methods of integration.

tonteldoos 12y ago
There are quite a few - I stopped reading after a while, because it wasn't getting anywhere... Ideally I want a single solution (even if it may require a bit of kludging), rather than integrate solutions. This is a side project, so time is limited :-/
- walterbell 12y ago
  How about Tellico or GCStar, which support custom collections? http://tellico-project.org/ http://tellico-project.org/ http://www.gcstar.org/ http://www.gcstar.org/ For metadata indexing of physically distributed storage (like hard disks), see http://git-annex.branchable.com/ http://git-annex.branchable.com/ . Git-annex could likely be integrated with metadata from GCstar or Tellico.
  - tonteldoos 12y ago
    Thanks! These look very promising (and neither featured on most of my searches). Any idea of something similar with a web frontend?
    - walterbell 12y ago
      There's a Java app called Data Crow, the screenshots imply that it has a web interface, but I haven't tested myself. http://www.datacrow.net/ http://www.datacrow.net/
      - tonteldoos 12y ago
        You're a legend! This looks almost exactly like what I had in mind. It really bugs me that these didn't show up anywhere near the top in my searches (and I used quite a few terms). How do you know about these?
        walterbell 12y ago
        I can't quite remember what search terms I used .. Calibre was one, because it's good for doc mgmt. I added "open source". Then a couple of software reviews used the term "collection management". http://alternativeto.net http://alternativeto.net was helpful, after I found one of the apps. Not really sure how I found them :)
        tonteldoos 12y ago
        Just discovered alternativeto.net :) Very useful! Having a bit of trouble getting data crow to work headless (even though it should 'just work'). Might end up delving into code after all :p

ShaneCurran 12y ago

You should take a look at my project, Libramatic (http://www.libramatic.com/ http://www.libramatic.com/). Hopefully it helps and let me know if you have any questions. Thanks :)

tonteldoos 12y ago
It looks really promising :) Do you plan on adding catalogue features for items other than books at some point in the future?

RyanLees 12y ago

Take a look at - https://www.assetbank.co.uk/ https://www.assetbank.co.uk/ - It has a lot of features that you have listed and is a self hosted web software. I haven't tested it myself but they have some really good reviews!