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I’m started cataloging my library using Booxter software, by Deep Prose. Since 1997, I’ve kept lists of all the books I’ve read, but I’ve never been good at keeping track of the books I actually own and haven’t yet read, or books that I want to purchase. And for insurance reasons, I should have an accurate record of what I own. I’ve needed to get my library organized for a long time and it’s such a huge task that I’ve put it off forever.

But I’ve been needing to go through all my books lately to weed some out and put them in my upcoming yard sale (Saturday, August 27th, more details to follow).
This past week I started using the public library’s request and hold capabilities, and realized that I can request a book on the internet and have it sent to my nearest library to pick it up, rather than buying it full price. Duh, I know. I realize that Stephanie, Lori, Joel, Jen, Rachel, and Beth have all pointed the wisdom of obtaining books this way at one time or another. I don’t know why I never listened to them. I think that once I started being able to afford to buy books instead of checking them out (before the library had such robust online features) I went that route because I love books so much I wanted to be surrounded by them.
And Stephanie and I went to the library book sale yesterday and I successfully found several books that I had on my wishlist for a long time. If I had been better organized about what I own and what’s on my wishlist, I might have found them earlier, and I might have obtained lots of books cheaper instead of paying full price for them.

So far, into the Booxter cataloging software, I have entered 125 titles, which includes all of the books I had sitting around on tables in the living room, plus three shelves from my book case in the living room. There are 39 more shelves in the living room, plus two small bookcases upstairs and a shelf of books at work to add.

The software goes out and grabs data from numerous sources, including all the bibliographic data and the cover image of the book, and I can enter data as well, such as when and where I purchased the book and for how much, if I’ve read it and when, etc.

For the 125 books, the tally is 41,760 pages, $2,546.68 for the full price to replace the books, and $1,286.42 that I personally have spent on books. Those last two numbers scare me.