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

This would be my MVP: I'd implement simple inventory app based on ISBN scanning and simply enumerated boxes with, say, 50 books each. Scan ISBN - put in the next empty box, take another box when full, and so on. Then based on title demand, I'll sort popular titles in their own boxes.

My thought is that the entire point of an old fashioned second hand book shop is to be able to wander around and explore. IF everything is catalogued, his barn instantly turns into a very bleak version of Amazon.

There’s a whole universe of folks selling used books on Amazon FBA. I suggest start with a google search of exactly that.

There’s apps which allow you to scan UPC codes and look up a price on Amazon. I’d personally sort the books by market value. Sell the books that are profitable, trash the ones which are not, save the ones which are very rare or have no UPC code, and use the money to grow the storage space.

that'll need a bunch of volunteers / friends to help with this work. also, check this podcast episode. might get some info / contacts https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/11/10/363103753/text...

once you've started this sorting / cataloging work: request visitors not to reshelf the books. have a central location (table / bins) for them to put the books, so the volunteers / barn-man can keep back in the right shelves.

also, what exactly is the barn-man's objective? just collect books and not bother about further? or, be the most helpful to book-lovers? or, make good money from these books ?

Hay On Wye is a town known for the book shops in Wales. Maybe this is the business model that you need to look into.

What Hay on Wye is known for is a literary festival. So there was a pivot to this a few decades ago that has worked.

This is the guy that started it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Booth

Note the way it started, buying library stock from America that was available due to libraries closing.

Some of the Hay book shops are really good, there is a former cinema that you could get lost for hours in. Some other book shops are more like 'extras'. They might have books in cases on the pavement with prices being pennies. This stuff could be fairly pulped, but, collectively it gives the whole town this aura of literature that is way beyond what the local sheep farmers necessarily go in for.

Now if a tourist visits Hay for the festival then they spend £££ on books but they also spend a lot more on cups of tea, admission fees to see performances, accommodation and whatever else. A given tourist might spend pennies on books but in so doing spend many pounds in the town. They might not even read the books purchased, they might become more souvenir value, and far from generic souvenirs.

The reputation from the festival is enough to bring a respectable amount of tourists to Hay throughout the rest of the year.

It also works with a sponsor, normally the Hay festival works with people who have a vested interest in it being successful, so you get a lot of coverage on BBC's Radio 4.

Hay also has splendid scenery going for it as well as it being in Wales, proper. There are towns nearby that are just as pretty with similar scenic backdrops but nobody remembers the names of those places. The books thing - which is the effort and inspiration of one man - has put the place on the map, literally.

So, rather than the high tech solution, maybe the preinternet solution has some pointers. Get some local store fronts that are closed premises to become book shops. Segment the collection so that some shops are more specialist than others. Have some shops in less prime locations so that collectively there is the same thing going on as with Hay on Wye. Create a fake literary hub and then make it into a real literary hub by putting on the ten day festival.

If you get the council and local businesses in on the act then you might be able to get the whole thing started. Build it and they will come works for Hay even though it is the middle of nowhere with just sheep for local population.

Trying to shift the product online for a pittance is no fun at all, the festival and tourist location thing could be much more exciting. Try and twin the town with Hay to get started...