971 Entered
1 month ago
About as many more to go. Time to stop buying book, I guess…
How to catalog my library
It made me
Organized 
"The end result was a lot more finalized than I thought it would be."
How I did it: I knew from the get go that I didn't want to catalog all my books by hand, so I started out with a table on Microsoft Word with columns for title, author, date of publication, number of pages, et cetera. The problem with that was that it was taking too long and I couldn't get all of the information I wanted without some exhaustive searching. So, I did a google search for cataloging websites and the first one I found was a perfect: librarything.com. Here's a link to my catalog: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/crawst
Lessons & tips:
- Use librarything.com. If you would rather use a word document or notecards then follow these tips:
- Know what information you want to catalog before you start, otherwise you'll end up trying to squeeze to much information into too little space.
- Develop a schedule. A lot of people try to do 5-10 books every day. I'm a student, so I found it easier to set aside an hour or two every Saturday and Sunday.
- But don't be uptight about your schedule, remember no one is staring over your shoulder making sure you get _____ amount of work done everyday.
- Be organized. For heaven's sake don't do something that I would do like catalog in different rooms so that you lose some of your notecards.
Resources: Librarything.com - They already have all the general information you could need plus reviews, and interesting memes and statistics that you can look at in the time you didn't spend copying out all those titles by hand.
1 person found this helpful
People doing this are also doing these things:
Entries
946 Down
2 months ago
As soon as I finish my digital ink sampler I’m returning to this goal. It’s nice to have something mindless to do now and then.
Libby is procrastinating
New plan of attack
2 months ago
I had been doing this on a spreadsheet, but I’ve found a website: www.librarything.com, which is making things go much faster.
941 Down
5 months ago
Maybe I’ll shoot more for five per day, time permitting. If I stick with this. it will get done. On the other hand, I’m amazed at how long this goal is taking. Still, it’s better than surfing eBay.
925 down!
6 months ago
I just finished reading A Gentle Madness and am newly motivated to finish cataloging our books. If I can do ten per day I may actually finish this goal by mid April. (I started organizing my library around that time last year.) Now if I can just figure out how to afford built in bookcases I may even be able to get everything in one room!
900 down...
6 months ago
I just passed the 900th book mark. I guess I’m about half way through. It’s hard to believe I started this goal over eight months ago and I’m not even close to finishing. Perhaps if I stopped going on book buying binges?
All done
10 months ago
My library has been cataloged and is viewable here:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/yanajenn
830 Entered!
12 months ago
I just entered the first shelf of my fourth bookcase. Just the rest of this bookcase plus two more to go!
Books Cataloged: 776
13 months ago
It’s shocking how time consuming this goal is. However, it’s always fun to inventory a collection of stuff that you love.
I just wish I had arranged the bookcases differently. It looks like I’m going to have to empty and rearrange four of them. The two that have six shelves lack height and really work better for paper backs, The five shelf versions have lots of headroom ao the taller nonfiction books can go there. All my fancy books: leather bound, first editions, and fine bindings are stashed in the glass covered cases. I’d prefer them arranged alphabetically for fiction, and by subject for nonficition. One of these days, I’ll spring for built ins with glass fronts, but until then I’ve just have to make do.
→ See all 52 entries
Ask for advice: Get help from people who've accomplished this goal
 Philippines
|
victoria1982 asks,
“does anyone have the free versions of mediaman or book collector? i'd like to organize my collections :) thanks in advance!”
— 3 years ago |
|
