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Ask HN: How can I automatically scan and catalog a mountain of books?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I automatically scan and catalog a mountain of books?

#91

Post by mcguire »

1k wrote: post #49

Get a barcode scanner, scan the ISBN and use that to do a API query on Amazon to retrieve title, author, category, price, etc. Store this info in a DB. Some scenarios: 1. Generally lookup should return something. Store these book by categories, e.g. business, children, fiction, etc. in their shelves/containers for physical browsing by your customers. The more subcategories you can do the better. 2. If price is bigger…

Last fall, Amazon shut down access to (one of?) their ISBN lookup service, unless you sold enough things from their advertising.

I've been using Tellico (http://tellico-project.org/) and a barcode scanner for many years and it works well. That's just for about 3,000-4,000 books, though. One of the other lookup options works. (ISBNSearch.org?)

Re: Ask HN: How can I automatically scan and catalog a mountain of books?

#92

Post by mcguire »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #14
kabdib wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried doing a book catalog about ten years ago. I got about 80% recognition rate by using multiple numbers (ISBN, and the Library of Congress number) and multiple online data sources. It was a pretty slow process, to the point where simply keyboarding the information was easier and less error-prone, and I had to manually enter the books that didn't get any online matches anyway. Definitely not a "scan/beep/scan/bee…

The last time I looked at this (admittedly quite a while ago) the book bar code contained the ISBN. What was causing the mismatches? Bar codes that did not contain the ISBN? Non-unique numbers?

You would be surprised to see how many books have the wrong ISBN or have a mismatch between the barcode and the ISBN. Not as much of a problem with major publishers now, but some from the 80s and 90s were hilarious.

Re: Ask HN: How can I automatically scan and catalog a mountain of books?

#93

Post by mcguire »

jcelerier wrote: post #23

I used Tellico to scan my library, it can automatically lookup the books from Amazon with their ISBN if you have a barcode scanner (else you have to type them by hands...) http://tellico-project.org/

Amazon shutdown that API last fall, I think. I've been using one of tellico's other options since then. (I don't remember which offhand.)

Re: Ask HN: How can I automatically scan and catalog a mountain of books?

#95

Post by rexpop »

brianwawok wrote: post #63
zimpenfish wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, is this really a problem that needs to be solved? For insurance purposes, probably, yeah, especially if there's anything rare, antique, valuable, etc.

I doubt old guy with barn full of books is looking to insure his rare books.

Maybe he would, if the thought weren't so daunting.

Re: Ask HN: How can I automatically scan and catalog a mountain of books?

#96

Post by [deleted] »

1k wrote: post #49

Get a barcode scanner, scan the ISBN and use that to do a API query on Amazon to retrieve title, author, category, price, etc. Store this info in a DB. Some scenarios: 1. Generally lookup should return something. Store these book by categories, e.g. business, children, fiction, etc. in their shelves/containers for physical browsing by your customers. The more subcategories you can do the better. 2. If price is bigger…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How can I automatically scan and catalog a mountain of books?

#97

Post by DaveWalk »

profsnuggles wrote: post #39

I would check out https://www.librarything.com/ also. They have a decent app for scanning barcodes and retrieve data from multiple sources. Their own database which consists of lots of imported marc records from university libraries I believe, library of congress, amazon, etc. Then they have another project librarycat where you can set up your books as a lending library. Cataloging a large number of books is not goin…

Came here to also recommend LibraryThing. It's been around for 14 years, and the community has lots of similar situations to OP's. Probably a good place to look up anecdotal evidence for this kind of project, too.

LibraryThing also hooks into [TinyCat](https://www.librarycat.org/) which can make your database more like a library's.

Re: Ask HN: How can I automatically scan and catalog a mountain of books?

#98

Post by jimnotgym »

mongol wrote: post #30
EnderViaAnsible wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I largely agree with your sentiment, I'd like to note that alphabetizing only assists those who know what they are looking for. In a bookstore, this is a virtue. But we appear to be dealing with a book barn. Perhaps the patrons of book barn have not wandered in by accident while searching for a bookstore :) For OP: I think you might be better off photographing the ISBN and then using a service or script to do a…

The challenge is, if the catalogued book is not immediately associated with where to find it if retrieving it later, all is in vain...

You need to stick a barcode on the location (shelf, box, etc) like they do in a warehouse. Scan the book, check it is correct, scan the location to book it in. Doesn't have a barcode, put it in another area for later. I wrote a sketch of exactly this once...

Re: Ask HN: How can I automatically scan and catalog a mountain of books?

#99

Post by ryanmarsh »

I worked for a company that scanned and catalogued many books in the ‘00s. There’s two primary challenges to solve, nondestructive scanning and speed.

1. In order to get a good scan (back then) we had to lay each page flat against a piece of glass (no matter the orientation). This tended to damage or destroy the binding by the time scanning was complete.

2. An average of ten seconds per scan (from page flip to page flip) is blazing fast (including rescans). For a 200 page book this is 33 minutes. To scan a library of 200 books at this rate requires 3.2 man years of work (normal 40 hour work week + holidays).

One way to speed this process drastically is to use a bulk scanner. This requires slicing the binding off the book and feeding in the book as a stack of pages, scanning the cover separately. Obviously this completely destroys the book.

Good luck.

Re: Ask HN: How can I automatically scan and catalog a mountain of books?

#100

Post by jonsen »

Tangential anecdote:

I once entered used-book store looking for and old math book. Noone there except a grumpy looking man with a wild hair and a big beard sitting at a desk in the far corner.

I start browsing the shelves.

“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?”

“Um, eh, Play with Eternity.”

“WE DON’T HAVE IT.”

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