Product Reviews

Library 1.1.4 is a shareware utility that enables you to create and maintain a book cataloguing system. Best of all, it does away with the laborious task of typing in the relevant information by hand. To add a book to your library, simply type the ISBN number into the relevant field and Library searches Amazon in the UK, US or Canada to find its details. It then automatically enters such data as author, title, price and publisher.

The cover, title, author, genre and rating are displayed in the main window, but this can be changed to any of the categories. Double-clicking on any book takes you to its further information window, where you can edit its details. Once all the data has been added, you can add your own notes to each book.

The barcode scanning feature is where the program really comes into its own. Attach a barcode reader, such as the Phoenix II (see Reviews, 13 June 2003, p30), scan the barcodes of the books you want to add and Library will

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add them. Using a T1 connection, a list of 10 barcodes took around a minute to search and fill in the information.

However, scanning the barcodes presents a problem when a book is not listed on Amazon, as it simply adds a blank field. The way around this problem is to either search through to see which books are missing or do the batches in smaller numbers, so you keep track of which books are not found. This is a little annoying, but by using a little judgment you can figure out which books might not feature on Amazon.

Library is also an electronic bookmark. If you are reading more than one book at a time you can bookmark one by entering the page number. If you lend any of your books out you can alter the status of the book to Lent Out, which changes the status icon to amber, or Overdue, which turns it red.

Though you can change a book's status, you can't set a time limit to automatically inform you when one is overdue, nor can you scan a barcode and find a book in the list. These features will be implemented in later revisions, according to the developer.

If you want to show off your library you can export it for use on the Web. Library creates a folder for all the necessary HTML files and cover images. From there, all you do is upload the files to your Web site.

For the home librarian, Library 1.1.4 is one of the most elegant and simple shareware tools available. It may not have all the features of a library, but it's not designed as a total system, and at less than £10 it offers incredible value for money.