PIRGThing

December 14, 2006 9:25 PM

I need to catalogue my non-profit's library of books and videos. We want it to be accessible for students and faculty to easily see what we own and what is currently available for borrowing. I have been looking at LibraryThing, and am pretty impressed, but I can't see a way to incorporate our films, to give each item an id number, or to mark what is currently borrowed or available. Are there ways for me to do this, or would another site/software be better?
posted by arcticwoman to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

you may want to look at Koha; not totally familiar with its functionality, but it's open source, and they also have a "testing it out" type interface to see if it meets your needs.
http://www.koha.org/
posted by ethel at 9:59 PM on December 14, 2006

Hey - LibraryThing's librarian here. Films. The fields on LibraryThing are optimized for books now. You can add movies and music (and people certainly do), but it's not quite as smooth as it is for books. That said, better support for other media is on our to-do list... The best way to give id numbers and to track lending is to use tags (although a 'loan' system is also on the master to-do list, if you're willing to wait). You could also try Gurulib, I think they have a system to track borrowing, and maybe ShelfCentered?
posted by ablachly at 10:00 PM on December 14, 2006

If you're on a mac, you might try Delicious Library.
posted by lilithim at 12:59 AM on December 15, 2006

If you're using a PC, you might consider BookCat - its functionality helps you keep track of book loans.

I think it can be used in conjunction with Catvids, so that's your film problem taken care of.
posted by micketymoc at 1:20 AM on December 15, 2006

Films work well enough in LibraryThing. As to ID numbers and borrowed status, seconding the tag system. Give it a trial of 100 books or so and see whether it works for you, it shouldn't be an hour or two of input using ISBNs.
posted by einekleine at 5:18 AM on December 15, 2006

Koha is probably over-kill, but if your collection grows, or you discover you need more functionality, it'll be there. I've been impressed with it (I'm running a Koha server at home to play with). It is OSS, so even if it goes away, the code is yours and can be changed.

LibraryThing is proprietary and owned by someone. That is to say, it is out of your control, and what do you do when the website is unreachable, gets bought by Satan and turned into a perfume shilling site or decides it can make more money cataloging soup labels?
posted by QIbHom at 6:01 AM on December 15, 2006

Blog it! Jessamyn's mentioned this project called WPopac, which uses WordPress. Prototype catalog here.
posted by steef at 6:23 AM on December 15, 2006

librarian-speak for what you're looking for is an OPAC, online public access catalog. I don't have much first-hand knowledge of them, so I won't make particular recommendations, but you may want to Google around that. I'm guessing there's one or more open source OPACs. (Although if your collection is relatively small, a full OPAC may be overkill.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:12 AM on December 15, 2006

I was a big fan of MediaMan, when it was freeware. The author was very quick to respond to suggestions and bug reports. I didn't have a real need for it, so I didn't purchase the upgrade, but I would definitely consider it if I had a budget (It is US$40).
posted by Rock Steady at 1:19 PM on December 15, 2006

what do you do when the website is unreachable, gets bought by Satan and turned into a perfume shilling site or decides it can make more money cataloging soup labels?

Oh, a future of cataloging soup labels! In all seriousness, LibraryThing is big on the "your data is your own" philosophy - you can export your catalog into Excel, for example, and then upload it into another cataloging program, or just play with it on your desktop.
posted by ablachly at 2:14 PM on December 15, 2006