Open Forum

Hello Laurie, 

Congratulations on earning your degree! We at the Alliance have a fairly small library but keep track of everything in a free online catalog called Libib. You can scan the bar codes and everything shows up in the record - such as the ISBN, the description, the author, the number of pages, etc. You can also add in books that don't have a bar code so everything is in one place and searchable. I hope you find this information helpful!

Cecelia

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Cecelia Walls
Assistant Director, Content
American Alliance of Museums
Arlington VA
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Hi Laurie,

A volunteer and I are using LibraryThing.com to create a digital catalog of my museum's staff library. It's free and has been very easy to use; we scan barcodes using our phones or an iPad. It also gives you access to a large community to help troubleshoot if any issues arise. If the book collection is large enough, it can be a tedious task, but it's a great volunteer/intern project when you get the application set up.

Good luck!

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Lauren Nye
Associate Curator
Hunter Museum of American Art
Chattanooga TN
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Original Message:
Sent: 1/16/2025 9:52:00 AM
From: Lauren Nye
Subject: RE: Recommendations for a Home Library System or App

Hi Laurie,

A volunteer and I are using LibraryThing.com to create a digital catalog of my museum's staff library. It's free and has been very easy to use; we scan barcodes using our phones or an iPad. It also gives you access to a large community to help troubleshoot if any issues arise. If the book collection is large enough, it can be a tedious task, but it's a great volunteer/intern project when you get the application set up.

Good luck!

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Lauren Nye
Associate Curator
Hunter Museum of American Art
Chattanooga TN
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I second Libib.  It is opensource and you can scan your books for data capture :-)

Be well,

Brett

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Brett Crawford PhD
Associate Teaching Professor
Heinz College - Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA
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We're using LibraryThing, which like Libib allows for scanning UPCs and importing. But what I really appreciate is that you can copy catalog from multiple institutions, which is great for things like dissertations, and that you can also import from CSV. They sell inexpensive barcodes if you want to track inventory, and there is an add-on, TinyCat, which allows you to track multiples copies of a title. You can make your collection private if you don't wish to participate in the community.

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Arlene Yu
Director, Knowledge and Legacy
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I'll echo those recommending Libib, but that's assuming, to Vivian's point, you're treating the book collections as a library collection and not a museum collection. My institution has used Libib for years for our reasonably small (~ 2,000 books) focused lending library. I found it infinitely easier to use than Library Thing. 

We do have a few books accessed as part of our collection, but those remain separate from Libib and under our normal archival collecting process. I would not recommend Libib for that purpose. 

You can see our library catalog here: http://libib.com/u/crhc

Warmly,

George 

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George Garner (he/him/his)
Assistant Director & Curator
Civil Rights Heritage Center - Indiana University, South Bend
South Bend IN
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Hi Laurie Sue, I have been using LibraryThing as well. I am not a librarian and sometimes I move in for me uncharted territories, but together with another volunteer we now have over 1,000 titles entered in the system. Mind you, as you go above 500 there is a fee, and then over 1,000 a higher fee. But it is minimal compared to other systems. As someone else already commented there is a users group, on the platform itself, where discussions and questions are posted. It's a very lively and helpful community of users. So far it works for us. 

https://www.librarycat.org/lib/HHDL-LLC

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Remko Jansonius
Newfield NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 2/7/2025 2:03:00 PM
From: Remko Jansonius
Subject: RE: Recommendations for a Home Library System or App

Hi Laurie Sue, I have been using LibraryThing as well. I am not a librarian and sometimes I move in for me uncharted territories, but together with another volunteer we now have over 1,000 titles entered in the system. Mind you, as you go above 500 there is a fee, and then over 1,000 a higher fee. But it is minimal compared to other systems. As someone else already commented there is a users group, on the platform itself, where discussions and questions are posted. It's a very lively and helpful community of users. So far it works for us. 

https://www.librarycat.org/lib/HHDL-LLC

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Remko Jansonius
Newfield NY
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