Hi, I am volunteering to catalog/organize a small (2-3000 volume) library of the local Hillel (Jewish student union in the US). I would like to ask for your help/input for selecting a tool to organize/catalog it.
Some criteria in order of importance: 1. I would like to use a tool where I would just need to type in the (10-digit, not the 13) ISBN and it would pull down the rest of the data (author, title...) from LoC or other sources. 2. Open source, free, or inexpensive. 3. Option for a sortable custom field, because this organization is using the Weine call number system. 90% of the books are labeled already by this system and sorted on the shelves accordingly. (But they don't have a computer catalog system, just some very out of date card catalogs. Part of my job will be to put the information into electronic format.) 4. It would be nice to have a web-interface, but it is not essential, according to the manager of the organization. (Let me not go into right now why I disagree. Suffice to say he also has arguments and I accepted them.) 5. The small volume of checking books in and out will be handled by the front desk person, therefore no automation necessary. 6. I need to print out labels (of the Weine call numbers) for the spines of the un-cataloged books. I have Excel set up for that, therefore it would be nice to be able to import the data into that. But because of the small volume (few hundred books) I can live without it. Here are some tools I already looked at: 1. "Book Collector" (http://www.collectorz.com/book/): more or less fits all of the above. I can think of a workaround to do #3. For #4 is not too interactive: there is only an export to HTML option. 2. PhpMyLibrary (http://www.phpmylibrary.org/): I installed it in the past, but I had a real hard time to make it comply with criteria #1. I think it can be done, but way too buggy/sensitive. 3. LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com/) Hillel is probably not ready to use a subscription based service even if it is just $15. I know that it can be exported to Excel, so this might work as a back up. 4. Resourcemate (http://www.resourcemate.com) is not free, but might work from all the other POV. I could wade through oss4lib (http://www.oss4lib.org/), but hoping somebody already did it. (And I am not clear on my library terminology yet to fully understand the implications.) Any other tips, hints, pointers to good sources? Please excuse me if my question is trivial to some of you. I am a first year, first quarter dMLIS students with limited library but extensive tech experience. Thank you in advance, Gabor Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: Hasafran @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
