So my stepdad turned me on to Bookpedia and the related versions, DVDpedia and CDPedia. Basically am SQL database but with some cool features for tracking books (CDs or DVDs). With over 800 Kindle books and an estimated 5-6K paper books I really needed to move past the series of text files I was using. What I like is that it’s not cloud based (which keeps me off of most of the book/library apps) and has a nice functional iOS system. So far I only have my Kindle books in it and am updating the metadata and adding in covers. I imported from an export of my calibre library. There is a way to add books by using the iPhone or iPad as a scanner of the ISDB numbers and bar codes but since so far most of my books don’t have them I’ll probably have to monk the data in once I start on the paper books.
I used it very intensively a few years back to add 1000 or so books to my bibliographic database (in Bibdesk) - at the time I used it with $20 USB bar code reader but I’m pretty sure you can use an iPhone to do the same now. I like it a lot- it exports nicely formatted BibTex to import to Bibdesk.
I have used the iPhone camera to import books via ISBN bar code but the vast majority of my books are old enough to not have ISBN numbers or bar codes on them. Those I’ll have to enter in totally by hand. Still trying to learn some of the features with smart collections etc. but it is interesting and easier to navigate than my huge text files when searching for books I own.
