Filed under: Software
Bookpedia
I have two passions in life: technology and books. I can't figure out how I didn't know about Bookpedia until yesterday when I stumbled across it. Sure, Delicious Library is the big name in Mac personal media management, but Bookpedia only costs $18 bucks and it pulls info from libraries as well as Amazon (cool!).
It has the iSight UPC scanning, the shelf metaphor, and the lending tracking features, as well as an iPod and HTML exporter. Check it out if you're as much of a book lover as I am.
My one gripe about all of these book cataloging programs is that they are good for tracking what you own, but I really would rather track what I have read. Maybe that's just me though.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
cozart said 5:25PM on 5-11-2006
doesn't delicious library have a check box where you can mark "read" or not?
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MrK said 5:36PM on 5-11-2006
listal.com not as pretty but good for cataloging all media and it gives you a have havent currently appropriate to the media.
But it lacks any other features. Good fun for showing off though.
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Mark Barber said 5:37PM on 5-11-2006
It's worth noting that although Bookpedia is "only" 18 dollars, you will have to pay another 18 dollars inorder to keep track of your music and another 18 dollars still to keep track of movies and still another 18 dollars to keep track of games. Delicious Library can do all of that for 40 dollars.
That said, the option to pull info from libraries and not just amazon is a nice feature.
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Jim C. said 5:42PM on 5-11-2006
Yes, Delicious Library does have a "played / read" checkbox. For those looking for it, select a book, click on the "My Info" button at the bottom of the details pane, then click the Edit button (the one with the pencil icon), and you'll see the "played / read" checkbox appear, along with a few other attributes.
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kukkurovaca said 5:45PM on 5-11-2006
I prefer Librarything, which costs $25 for a lifetime membership (there's also an annual membership and a free account for under a certain number of books), and throws in some nice social features, etc., though it doesn't have the tasty desktop gui.
http://www.librarything.com/profile/kukkurovaca
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Cromwell said 6:39PM on 5-11-2006
You should check out the app called Books at http://books.aetherial.net/wordpress. It's free, opensource, has a nice interface, it can quickfill from multiple sources including isbndb.com and amazon.com, you can create smart lists and it can import current lists from multiple sources. It's worth a look.
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icruise said 10:01PM on 5-11-2006
I use DVDpedia, the version for cataloging DVDs, and I'm very happy with it. It's actually one of my favorite pieces of software. True, I do sort of get the feeling that Gamepedia (which I have never used) is almost the same as DVDpedia and may not warrant a completely different license fee. But there is a small discount if you buy more than one of the programs.
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Bakari said 10:02PM on 5-11-2006
I second LibraryThing. You can't beat a $25 lifetime membership and the ability to tag your catalogue of books. I tag my books read by year.
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sirromdivad said 10:48PM on 5-11-2006
I would second the vote for LibraryThing -- it's great, and the developer keeps adding very interesting features. Though if you need a desktop app, it may not be what you want.
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Bakari said 11:42PM on 5-11-2006
Okay, I will always love LibraryThink, but I just downloaded and purchased Bookpedia. My bookish self just couldn't resist. I grabbed my miniDV camera (works like iSight, of course) and was able to import over 50 books in fifteen minutes. Then I noticed that each imported books comes with other books similar to it, so I used that to add another 20 or so books. Man, this application is a big time saver for cataloguing. I wish LibraryThing and Bookpedia could work together. Nice to have my collection online but also now on a separate application on my computer.
Bookpedia has a clean interface like iTunes and is less than half the price of Delicious, which I've always felt was too expensive and thus never purchased it.
Thanks for posting about this application.
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BM5k said 12:29AM on 5-12-2006
Server is down... Too many concurrent connections. Peachy!
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Herv Sainct said 8:20AM on 5-12-2006
There are two broad kinds of books managers:
- the ones that mainly can go on internet to gather the image of your book, which is flashy, and everything else has been added afterwards
- the serious ones, that respect all a real librarian needs, and which add the flashy internet access in addition.
I don't know where Bookpedia is*, but I compared it to Booxter, which for one IS on the serious side, and I went for Booxter.
This said, when came the time to handle my DVDs, I didn't find better than DVDPedia, sister app to Bookpedia :-)
One last thing though: with these applications, if you use the internet access to complement your books or DVD data, there is something you must know: regularly updating is a must.
The online bookstores that are used for this evolve very frequently, and the application developper must follow by issueing very frequent updates.
Of this I would recommend, when choosing yours, check the update frequency, and consider the ones infrequently updated will soon fail to retrieve your beloved cover images.
It's worth noting, also, that Bookpedia and DVDpedia when updating to intel processors chose a paying (and costly) upgrade, while the Booxter equivalent upgrade is for free. And as I stressed, stopping your upgrade means killing the internet-related features much sooner than you think.
So, I won't start shouting, "Serious guys don't milk you", and I'll probably repay for DVDPedia as soon as my old version crashes on internet accesses, but, well, I'm all the more satisfied with Booxter :-)
Herv
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Scott said 9:52AM on 5-12-2006
Bookpedia and DVDpedia are OUTSTANDING products! Delicious Library's interface is childlike by comparison. Using the pedias is like second nature because they're based so closely on the iTunes interface. Plus, they're MUCH more customizable than Delicious Library -- custom fields, custom looks, Smart collections (just like Smart Playlists), etc.
Also, the developers are constantly improving the software and responding to users at their forum at http://www.bruji.com/forum. I can't tell you how often I've seen a user ask for a tweak on a feature, and about 3 days later there's a message from the developers saying it's been done, and to download the new, improved version. The apps are universal, and they import files from other applications beautifully (letting you match up field names). You can use all the Pedias for free for up to 10 items before registering, although they even let you import and view much bigger collections before registering.
There's also a CDpedia, which I haven't used, but integrates with iTunes. I hunted through about 10 different DVD library management applications before deciding that DVDpedia was heads above all of them. I really can't say enough about how wonderful these products are!
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Tod said 12:24AM on 5-13-2006
Scott, I 'm with you on keeping track of books I've read. I do not need all the endless details as I am not a collector. Once I read a book, I try tos ell it on Amazon or I give it to my local library or give it to a local coffee shop for other patrons to read. Delicious Library does have a "played/read" column but even that's too much. I just want a field where I enter a check mark or a Y to indicate that I've read it. I'm absent-minded and I find all too often that I've bought a book and then discover 15 pages into it that I've read it before.
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Jmorr said 5:00PM on 5-16-2006
Bookpedia helpds me keep track of books I own but haven't had time to read, the books I have read and kept, the books I have given away, and the authors I particularly like. I think Pedia are working on template improvements for their export-to-print but if you don't like the current options and don't want to fuss with them you can export tab-delimited files and open them either in Mariner Calc or Microsoft Excel (Mac). You'll still have to tweak and juggle but it's certainly quicker than any other way of doing it. As for keeping track of what you have or haven't read, all you need is two smart folders, maybe one for unrated books (Not Read) and one for everything rated (you read those, right?) Or have lots of smart folders. They're easy to set up.
I've tried most of the other book-cataloguing programs but since I mainly just want to keep track of what I have and keep track of it on paper as well as on the computer, this is the one that works for me. (You can export to your iPod, too.) Neat program and getting better all the time.
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Jose Mayen said 6:37AM on 5-17-2006
Bookpedia is the best. At first I was impressed with the simplicity, speed and the intuitive of it's use, this mainly due to the fact that it works like iTunes. I installed it for my mom and it went well; it was great that I didn't have to spend another four months teaching her a new program like I spent with iTunes. Then I started poking around to see what else it could do for a serious collector like me and the options where amazing. So many things to mention I will only address your gripe, it has an independent collection feature. Create a new collection and ctrl click it or under the file menu you can separate it from you library, that way keeping a list of books you have read but do not own. But even better is the fact that the software is smart and works like magic, there is a last read field. Fill it out with a date and Bookpedia will know you have read the book. you can then use smart collections as someone else mentioned but better yet it shows up in the statistics what books I have read last and how many I have read in a particular collection. Also you don't need to edit the book info, there a menu command "Mark As Read" under edit, if you learn the keyboard shortcut it as simple as selecting a book or many books and hitting the shortcut. Hope that helps you get the most of Bookpedia like I have.
Jose
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