Cataloguing Books

[DJH]

As you all might have guessed by now I'm an inveterate collector of all things old and unusual (girls excepted of course :lol: ) and I now have in mind cataloguing my book collection. I've tried as many places as I can including a template from Microsoft Office but it's not really what I want and slow to use, well I find it slow anyway.

Does anyone have any ideas please?

Doug

 

[Keithj]

There are three ways of doing it...

1. Find a specialist package on offer. Lots of luck...

2. Use an off-the-shelf database package - Microsoft Access, one of the SQLs.

3. Use a spreadsheet package such as Microsoft Excel.

The learning curve is steeper with 2, but the options are broader.
3 is easy (it's the way I do lots).

The important thing is to "design" the spreadsheet/database properly before you start, because alterations after you have made the first 1,000 entries can be a bit trickier. Doable, but trickier.

Excel has the great benefit that you can "sort" entries based on different fields. You can also build in macros to do some of those jobs automatically, although MS advises against macros these days because of the risk of viruses getting in and doing strange things to them. I don't put my Excel sheet anywhere near where viruses would be, so I'm complacent

 

[Flyfisher]

Unless Doug's collection rivals that of the British Library, I'd agree with Keith's suggestion to use Excel.

I use Excel for my music collection. Very quick and easy to search and sort. I dont see why it wouldn't work just as well with books.

 

[DJH]

Thanks chaps. I'll have to wait until the Summer when my daughter and her family come over for the holidays both her and her husband know about these things and Excel scares me I think I'll write out a list out and then transfer it when they arrive.

I need to put a value on them so Mrs DJH doesn't use them to light the fires with... :roll:

That's one thing I don't collect FF although I like all types of music from Quo to Beethoven. Maybe I should start?? Just heard a no from the bathroom.

Doug in Sunny Tipperary.

 

[Flyfisher]

No need to be scared of Excel, Doug. It can be as simple or as complicated as you like.

Just treat it as a simple table. Decide on the column headings (Author, Title, Date, Publisher, Subject, etc) and then enter each book details in separate rows.

You won't even need to worry about what order you enter the information because you can always sort it later, by any of the column headings.

Also, if you're doing this to value your collection, then just add a "Value" column and enter the appropriate figure for each book. A very simple formula at the bottom of the column will then automatically calculate the total value.

The more I think about this, the more I'm convinced that Excel is the easiest solution.


As for music, my collection includes Quo and Beethoven and most things in between. Except for anything Rap!

 

[DJH]

I see what you mean FF. It's rather like the accounts we have to do for those kind people in the Revenue! The other thing I don't seem to get right on Excel and that's when I get carried away (as usual) and put to much text into a column and it hides itself. It's times like this that I regret not having a go while the grandchildren were hanging about.

Same here. Anything but rap, garage and modern jazz. Sorry Penners...

Doug

 

[plasticpigeon]

I can help with that. If you right click on the cell, go to format and wrap text it should make the cell the right depth to get all the text in.

Only jazz in my collection, nothing post 1965 though.

 

[Flyfisher]

I see what you mean FF. It's rather like the accounts we have to do for those kind people in the Revenue! The other thing I don't seem to get right on Excel and that's when I get carried away (as usual) and put to much text into a column and it hides itself. It's times like this that I regret not having a go while the grandchildren were hanging about.

Why not make a start with a few books and if you get into trouble you can email the file to me and I'll try to sort it out for you. You shouldn,t need too much text in each cell - unless you're writing a synopsis for each book. :wink:

 

[Keithj]

I think several of us on here could help. It really is easy - the secret with Excel and similar stuff is to realise that it's dumb and you're not.

Setting text columns to "scroll as necessary" avoids the problem of vanishing text. You can even stretch or scrunch columns to make it suit your page layout if you decide to print it.

One tip: backup up regularly as you go along. I'm a simple soul - my stuff would have filenames like "books20130319.xls", maybe with a -1 or -2 after the date if I did a lot of work on one day. The system will them sort them into date order so you can find the latest one easily. The first thing you do after you open the file is to save it again with the new date it will have.

Once in a while, delete the oldest ones if you don't need them any more.

If your computer crashes, Excel will as often as not be able to recover to pretty close to the final status you were at.

 

[Keithj]

Oh - and another tip: don't economise on columns. They're free! Have a separate one for every individual bit of information. Title, Author, Publisher, Date, ISBN...

You can set Excel to "merge" cells for output - I use a two-page workbook for some jobs: page 1 is the "input", the way it logically comes. Page two takes that, and merges it the way I want it printed out. That can be an enhancement for later, as long as you set up the original in a logical way.

 

[DJH]

Thanks again for all this advice. Here's an example of a books description ( English Leadwork,Its Art and History and I have 4 1st Editions :roll: )after I've listed Author, Title, Publisher, Date and both the cost and present value when and if possible where it was purchased and most important if it is loaned the person who has it...

Recognised as being the most comprehensive book about leadwork and frequently used for reference. It doesn't cover any technical details about plumbing or roofing leadwork or any explanation of methods of casting lead.. Covers the use of lead from Roman times up until the beginning of the 20th C and has pictures of Bromsgrove Guild ornaments and rainwater heads by people who are also mentioned in other books I have. The book is an example of early photography during the heyday of Country Life magazine and their curious habit of having windows wide open when the photos were taken of the exteriors of the properties!

You can see that I get carried away. This is a short description but I can easily make it longer!!

I believe with Excel you can arrange the list in any way you wish either alphabeticaly , cost or date etc although I'll postpone trying that for now.

Thanks FF I'll take you up on your kind offer soon.

Where else can you get such a wealth of knowledge and advice all given in a friendly manner..only on here.

Doug

 

[Flyfisher]

That's quite a 'summary' :wink: 621 characters according to MS-Word. It will fit in an Excel cell but it will limit the number of entries per page because of the space it will occupy, although perhaps you won't want a printed copy?

Anotrher possibility is to create a much shorter 'subject' entry and then add all the extra info as a comment. This would normally be hidden in a printed list but could easily be seen when using the PC.

Anyway, have a go with a few book entries first and see how you get on. You have my email address if you want to send me anything.

 

[Keithj]

Quite so!

You could put all that text into a cell.

You could end up with something that looks a bit like this...

You can play indefinitely with format, and of course when you print it it can be made to look nice - with boxes round each cell, or not, and so on.

 

[DJH]

Yippee!! I've cracked that wrap around text thanks Keith. It took a while but I got into Format Cells and selected from that box that appeared. I'm using Windows 7, does that make a difference?

Thanks chaps. Excel? Pah, I spit on it!!

Doug

 

[Flyfisher]

I don't think Windows 7 will make any difference to things Doug, though different versions of Excel might. But this is a simple enough application that all versions should easily be able to handle it. Good job Keith - the massed ranks of PPUK are invincible!

 

[DJH]

Another thing chaps is how do I set it up for either alphabetical or value etc. A to Z descending or value highest to lowest?

Doug

 

[plasticpigeon]

If you highlight the range (all the inputs you have made) and then go to the data tab at the top and click sort, you can sort by ascending and descending values in any column in the range and the other values should stay with the sorted data. When you make progress you are happy with save the sheet. Have a play and if it messes up you can always click the undo arrow or pick undo from the edit tab and try again. If it really messes up shut it down without saving to get back to the previous good version of it and go again!!!

 

[Keithj]

What I would suggest is to make up a simple trial version, insert a few lines of stuff, then have a dabble with "sort" and "split" and "freeze panes".

Microsoft can't leave well alone, and changed Excel from fairly straightforward to very complex around 2007. The earlier version was fast and effective. The newer one has lots of flashy drop-down ribbon menus to do thousands of things I never want to - most of them I don't even understand. The ribbons change and move about, depending on what you're doing. What was at the top left has suddenly migrated, or disappeared altogether. It was too much of a good thing for me.

I gave away the Office 2007 package to my neighbour's teenager and continue with Office 2003, which does all I want and more.

What you can do with the later version is to set up your own toolbar, with the stuff you use all the time, so all is not lost.

If you want to e-mail me your experimental version, I'll see if there are any tweaks I can suggest. Send me a PM and I'll PM back an address.

 

[wobs]

As part of our packing for moving, we have been recording as many of the books as possible, by scanning the bar code of each one for its ISBN, using Mrs Wobs' smart phone. Its not 100%, as in it only finds the info about 80% of the time, and some books pre-date bar codes, but it means what we do have is now uploaded into a spreadsheet, where we can sort it at a later date, and add those books that are missing.

We have even set up which books have gone into which box.

This can then go towards our spreadsheet for working out the value of our house contents.

 

[Flyfisher]

I wonder if RFID technology (those small, sometimes hidden, tags placed inside goods, that can be identify the item to a suitable wireless scanner) will ever catch on for domestic applications? It could make such catalogues very easy to compile indeed.

Wobs' ISBN idea is interesting though. Perhaps they could be used to provide a hyperlink in Doug's new catalogue instead of having to type in a long summary of each book. Might not work so well for very old editions I guess.