A query for my (book friends) && (Mac friends).

$ cd ~meri > General > A query for my (book friends) && (Mac friends).

2012.07.13

General

A few short years ago, Delicious Library was the pinnacle of “I own a Mac and I want to catalog all of my books” software. Then they got in a fight with Amazon, and have apparently pretty much written off the fabulous product. As I’m seriously pondering going through and laying hands on all of my books again, I thought it might be a good time to recatalog them. And thus, my query.

What’s the best software out there right now for this sort of thing? It’s entirely possible the answer is still “get a copy of Delicious Library 2,” as it really is a mighty fine piece of software. However, before starting on this gargantuan task, I figure I should get some input.

My requirements:

  • Works on a Mac
  • Syncs to something accessible while mobile. Whether this is an iPhone app or a web site, I don’t much care, so long as the web site is mobile-friendly. (Damn. I just realized that I probably lost my copy of the Delicious Library iPhone app, and they’ve long since pulled it from the App Store, so I can’t redownload it. That just sucks.) An Android-only or Windows-mobile-only app is not particularly helpful.

My wish list:

  • Barcode scanning
  • Multiple sources for data import (Amazon, LoC, etc.)
  • “Smart” shelves / lists for automatically grouping books by user-supplied criteria
  • Support for multiple types of media. eBooks / AudioBooks are a significant part of my collection, and shouldn’t be left out. For some reason, I’m not as concerned about CDs / music or DVDs / movies, though I guess support for those as well wouldn’t suck.
  • Notes / reviews field.
  • User-definable status (or at least some sort of) field: completed / currently reading / threw across the room / donated / etc
  • Not looking or feeling like a Windows 3.1 app. This is one of my big problems with Calibre. Clunky UI, fairly slow with big libraries.

Things I really don’t care about:

  • Social media integration. I don’t really care if the app lets me tell Twitter / Facebook / whatever that I’ve just purchased / read / threw across the room a book.
  • Loan tracking. Eh, it’s nice, but not a requirement.
  • Physical location in the house tracking. I’ve seen some apps that require you to put where the book is located (office, library, living room, etc). In my experience, books are mobile, and I really have no desire to spend this much time tracking them.
  • How much is my entire library worth? I’m actually kind of scared of discovering this number. I think I once figured out how much money I’d ever spent on comics, and decided to never ever do that again.

So, what say you, Interwebs? Do you know of some new magic piece of software I should try out? Or is Delicious Library still my best bet?

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