Hi !
I've been asked to list and sort about 1000 books, so I'm looking for the best program to do so. BookPedia seems to fit very well to what I need.
I hoped I'd be able to use the Dewey system to sort the books in the shelves, but they aren't downloaded (most of the books are french). What techniques are you using to have the same sorting in the physical shelves than in BookPedia, so you can quickly find the book you chose in BookPedia ?
Thanks in advance !
Sort my books using BookPedia
I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to do.
You can - and probably should - use Location as one of the entries for each book. Then you can look for a book and find its location, or you can search for all books in a given location.
And there is a column for the Dewey classification, though you might need to enter this manually.
You can - and probably should - use Location as one of the entries for each book. Then you can look for a book and find its location, or you can search for all books in a given location.
And there is a column for the Dewey classification, though you might need to enter this manually.
I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to do.
You can - and probably should - use Location as one of the entries for each book. Then you can look for a book and find its location, or you can search for all books in a given location.
And there is a column for the Dewey classification, though you might need to enter this manually.
I've looked at a number of programs and decided I like Bookpedia best. The forums, and the fact that the developer responds quickly to questions in the forum, are among its advantages.
And we keep getting tantalising hints of the goodies due in a new version.
You can - and probably should - use Location as one of the entries for each book. Then you can look for a book and find its location, or you can search for all books in a given location.
And there is a column for the Dewey classification, though you might need to enter this manually.
I've looked at a number of programs and decided I like Bookpedia best. The forums, and the fact that the developer responds quickly to questions in the forum, are among its advantages.
And we keep getting tantalising hints of the goodies due in a new version.
With books I use the location field as well to narrow it down to a specific shelf in the house. From there I can read the spine for the 30 or so titles on the shelf. For DVDs I use the collection ID field with a personal ID that has both a letter and number. Lets me find the binder and the exact location inside the binder without searching for it.
I think it's all about the kind of books you will be cataloging. The Dewey decimal number is not provided by Amazon but it is provided by the Library of Congress, so you can gather more info from that site. To me the Dewey decimal system has never been human friendly, so I tend to go by a more approachable system, such as having them together by genre and then sorted alphabetically by author. This is a sorting that is friendly to humans and can be mimicked in Bookpedia sorting the columns and then I can enter the location for a group of items that are now together.
I think it's all about the kind of books you will be cataloging. The Dewey decimal number is not provided by Amazon but it is provided by the Library of Congress, so you can gather more info from that site. To me the Dewey decimal system has never been human friendly, so I tend to go by a more approachable system, such as having them together by genre and then sorted alphabetically by author. This is a sorting that is friendly to humans and can be mimicked in Bookpedia sorting the columns and then I can enter the location for a group of items that are now together.
Thanks for the replies.
Thanks again !
I'll also do it like that. I'm also going to print small stickers with the shelf, the genre and maybe even the first letters of the author so it will be easy to find and place back the books ! I guess the best way to do that is to export the library to excel ?Conor wrote:so I tend to go by a more approachable system, such as having them together by genre and then sorted alphabetically by author.
Thanks again !
And directly another question about the sharing : i read that i should avoid editing the same library from two computers at the same time.
I'd like to know if it is better to install bookpedia on every computer at the office, or use only one computer as library terminal (knowing that every computer is used by someone, the first alternative seems to be the best, if the file is not in great danger).
I guess another good alternative would be to put the library file on an external drive (eventually even USB key), and maybe the application as well (so I would need only one license), would this work ?
Thanks !
I'd like to know if it is better to install bookpedia on every computer at the office, or use only one computer as library terminal (knowing that every computer is used by someone, the first alternative seems to be the best, if the file is not in great danger).
I guess another good alternative would be to put the library file on an external drive (eventually even USB key), and maybe the application as well (so I would need only one license), would this work ?
Thanks !
Excel does know a lot about printing stickers and the layout of standard label sheets. But another option is creating a printing template for Bookpedia. They work just like the HTML export. You layout a web page and Bookpedia fills in the blanks with your books. You would need someone who can layout a web page to match your stickers. You can take a look at the included templates for examples. Any .html file placed in the data folder ~/Library/Application Support/Bookpedia/Templates shows up in the export or if named "Printing..." in the print panel.
For sharing, all three solutions work. The reason the shared solution is a bit tricky is that as much as Bookpedia tries to keep the libraries in sync (it looks at the modification date and reloads the information if needed) it is still possible for one user setting some books as borrowed and a second user adding a book for the second user to remove the borrowed status of the previous books if the operation happen close enough. Concurrent access is complicated and it's better left to the professionals; this is why the next version lets Apple take care of it and leaves it to Core Data. Our testing of that went well, there were certain setups were it decided to freeze one copy of Bookpedia while the other was running, but it was always in sync and as soon as the Bookpedia that was using the database quits the other would unfreeze. This is an area that will need further testing with the new version to find out exactly what might be the cause. I was very happy with the testing as overall a lock on the database is annoying but never losing any data is wonderful.
The USB stick idea will also work. You would need to set up each computer to look for the database in the USB stick. That information is kept in the preference of Bookpedia and would be needed to be set up once per computer.
The license is meant for one user and his immediate family and their computers (how close are you feeling to your co-workers
). Since your limiting yourself to one user and one library for the entire office it would be okay. Each situation is different, it all depends on your karma, if it feels okay then we are okay with it as well.
For sharing, all three solutions work. The reason the shared solution is a bit tricky is that as much as Bookpedia tries to keep the libraries in sync (it looks at the modification date and reloads the information if needed) it is still possible for one user setting some books as borrowed and a second user adding a book for the second user to remove the borrowed status of the previous books if the operation happen close enough. Concurrent access is complicated and it's better left to the professionals; this is why the next version lets Apple take care of it and leaves it to Core Data. Our testing of that went well, there were certain setups were it decided to freeze one copy of Bookpedia while the other was running, but it was always in sync and as soon as the Bookpedia that was using the database quits the other would unfreeze. This is an area that will need further testing with the new version to find out exactly what might be the cause. I was very happy with the testing as overall a lock on the database is annoying but never losing any data is wonderful.
The USB stick idea will also work. You would need to set up each computer to look for the database in the USB stick. That information is kept in the preference of Bookpedia and would be needed to be set up once per computer.
The license is meant for one user and his immediate family and their computers (how close are you feeling to your co-workers
). Since your limiting yourself to one user and one library for the entire office it would be okay. Each situation is different, it all depends on your karma, if it feels okay then we are okay with it as well.