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Looking for a book scanning app

wayrad

Android Expert
May 12, 2010
1,177
149
Long Island
I've been looking at books scanning apps - you know, the ones that let you scan the barcodes on books you own and then identify the book and enter it into a database to help in keeping track and to avoid purchasing duplicates. Ideally, this information should be sortable using various keys. The bizarre thing is that after trying two or three, I haven't yet found one that will sort by author's last name! Honestly, who would want to sort by author's first name? (Is whatever is wrong with the People app catching or something? ;))

So, can anyone tell me if a book scanning app that will sort by author's last name exists, or am I wasting my time?

Thanks!
 
Book+ Or the free version: Book

I have Movie+ by the same dev. It's pretty handy, and my only complaint would be that it doesn't sort them alphabetically.

There's no way I could catalog all my books, though. That would take months. lol

ETA: Doh. Didn't read your whole post, and missed the bit about sorting. I'm not sure, but I think the only way to sort in any particular fashion (with the apps I mentioned) would be to export to a CSV file, and sort them manually.
 
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Thanks, I think Book is one of the ones I already tested, but I'll double check. I wonder why such an obvious feature is lacking from these apps. You would think it was a no-brainer.

Will look at qrcode, but I really need something that will enter the book info into a database that can be sorted and searched.
 
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Just to update, Book Catalogue (available in the Market) will sort by author's last name. I especially like the way it will download cover thumbnails or let me add my own photos. The developer has been really nice about answering my questions too. Just finished doing my collection of about 750 books. :)
 
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WOW..750 books!!! You can open your own book store with that many, Wayrad. lol Does Book Catalogue have other sorting fields, like by genre or series etc?
I can't bear to throw anything away.:eek:

It will sort by author, title, series, or loan status. Also it does multiple "bookshelves" which is handy because I keep some books at a relative's house and often want to look at only those in one general location. There's a location field, too, which I've been using to note which box the book is in, and lots of other fields which can be optionally hidden or displayed. Books can be added by barcode scanner, ISBN, or manually.
 
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Now that you mention it, genre sort would be really nice - perhaps I should suggest it to the developer.

haha, what it doesn't already? Isn't that like quintessential aspect of a good book list app...to be able to sort by genre. :rolleyes:

Yeah, suggest that to the dev :)

Edit: I wonder why the app requires to read my contact data? Ah damn it I need to install a Barcode scanner -_-; I hate that app...
 
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Edit: I wonder why the app requires to read my contact data?
Yeah, that one is weird, but after the developer was nice enough to edit my .csv file for me so I could reimport it after things got messed up (between a bug in an earlier version and my doing the wrong thing), I don't think he's going to steal my data. ;)

The app still has a few quirks, but the most recent version seems to do the job all right. Main thing to remember is that with recent paperbacks the correct barcode is usually the one inside the front cover, not the one on the back.
 
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Just to update, Book Catalogue (available in the Market) will sort by author's last name. I especially like the way it will download cover thumbnails or let me add my own photos. The developer has been really nice about answering my questions too. Just finished doing my collection of about 750 books. :)

Another vote for Book Catalogue. I tried a lot of apps before settling on it. As wayrad said the developer is really helpful.
 
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