Canter Bridge

I confess: I didn’t know how may book I owned. My guess would not even have come close.

Worse, from time to time I sold a handful of books used on Amazon, only to find that when an order came through I couldn’t locate the book. In order to provide reasonable service, I ended up refunding the purchaser his money then buying the same book from a third party and sending it to him. Although I reaped the satisfaction of having done the same thing, I also lost money on such deals, which happened more than once. Worse, I realized I couldn’t find a book when I needed to.

Clearly, I needed four things: a decent piece of home-library software, a basic understanding of an organizational system, access to a database that catalogues books I own according to the chosen organizational system, and considerable time to catalogue the books. I began to imagine that I could to this thing.

But before I did anything, I had to decide how to deal with a legacy issue. I am an academic, though my interests and therefore my book acquisitions stray far outside my area of academic expertise. I am a biblical scholar and have for some years maintained a well-ordered library in that field with the help of EndNote bibliographical software. For my current project, I did not want to disturb that happy arrangement, but rather to catalogue our household’s inventory of books that do not pertain to the field of biblical studies. For the foreseeable future, then, I plan to have two libraries: one, recorded by EndNote, that is technical. Another, for any and all non-biblical studies books, videos, and recordings, that will be organized by another library software program.

Now, to the task:

First, where to find a good home library software program?

After doing some research, I happened upon an inexpensive software called Delicious Library. I’m a Mac user. I’m sure equivalent programs exist for PC owners. A month into owning Delicious Libary 2, I am still impressed.

The producers of DL2 tell you that you can scan the details of a book onscreen, using the Mac’s built-in camera. The forums tell you many users have found this ineffective. So have I. Discarding that technique for inputting my book’s details, I was left with two alternatives: buy a scanning pen or manually input a piece of the data that would be sufficient to connect with databases.

I chose to do my inputting manually. In most cases, I simply typed in the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) or it slightly longer companion, the EAN (European Article Number). Then I sat back and let DL2 wow me. In most cases, it recognized the EAN (or ISBN). In some cases, I needed to type in keywords from the author’s name and/or title.

DL2 then displays beautiful cover artwork for those books for which it has access to this feature. It also populates its own fields with other of the book’s details. With relatively modest, though steady, input I was able to lock my books into DL2’s database. For the first time ever, I had a reliable catalogue of my non-academic books. Things were beginning to look rosier.

But I needed to decide what system to use to organize my books …

You could choose anything: author’s name, topic, title by alphabetical order, ISBN. But none of these fits my style. Besides, my biblical studies library already has an ordering system: the venerable Dewey Decimal System. It would be convenient not to have to invent another.

To learn Dewey. Or not to learn Dewey. Or to fudge a little when necessary.

I messed around a bit with web pages intended to teach people like me the World of Dewey. I concluded that this is one of those corners of life where just a little knowledge would probably do the trick. Some newer published works have a dewey number included with the material inside the front cover. Most do not. What is more, I learned to refer to ‘a Dewey number’. The Dewey Decimal System, it turns out, has a measure of art for each dollop of science. Across the gamut of libraries that hold a book, a variety of Dewey numbers might be assigned to the selfsame work. Classification, sometimes, is in the eye of the beholder.

However, help was at hand:

First, for my hundreds of titles in biblical studies, I simply adopted the Dewey number already assigned by the estimable Tyndale House Library of Cambridge, England. No need to re-invent the wheel, as one says.

For other titles I learned to access the marvel that is WorldCat. This phenomenal link puts you in touch with libraries that hold the work for which you are seeking a Dewey number. But, as in all things that librarians have touched with their hoary hands, nothing is straightforward.

In the world of WorldCat, your task is to access libraries that use and record the Dewey number of their holdings. Not all do so. You’ll occasionally have to work your way down this list of links to libraries that have your title on their shelves until you find one that records a Dewey number for it.

Occasionally, you will simply not find one. Here’s where you become a librarian by fiat. When the trail runs cold and you’re left holding a book for which you can find no Dewey number previously assigned, just do the honorable thing. Invent a similar title, find its Dewey, and assign that number to your book. It’s not illegal and no one will come pounding on your door in the dead of night. At least I don’t think they will.

Here’s a time-saving tip when using WorldCat. As you move from library to library in search of a Dewey number for your book, become intimate with the WorldCat’s ‘Back to item details on World.Cat.org’ link. Trust me: using this link rather than the ‘back’ button on your browser will save you a world of hurt.

Almost there

There you have it. Now your books are properly ‘Dewey-ed’ and it’s time to organize them on your shelves. Some people invest the time and money into labeling the spine of each book. I simply pencil in the Dewey on the inside cover.

Amazingly enough, I now know what books I own and where to find each one.

Chaos just got pushed back a step. That’s something.