Tech: Book Inventory Software

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: GUEST,possible solution
Date: 18 Apr 12 - 02:55 PM

the computer language MUMPS (see article on en.Wikipedia for background) is not well known, as advances and fads have changed, but it was designed to be simple, small, fast, easy to use, and easy on storage (ie, disks). A program to track the information you wish (and sort it and such) shouldn't be more than a partial page of code. MUMPS is being used across the entire Veterans' Administration Indian Health Service, and Defense Department Hospital Systems as the underlying language for the VISTA (in a prior life, Fileman) database system. It is currently being deployed in biology research to track protein and DNA information; speed and efficiency are both at high premium in this new field. It has also been widely used in banking and finance.

Sanchez Assoc has released a quite complete implementation which is available at no cost. There is a pointer to it at the bottom of the Wikipedia article.

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Apr 12 - 02:43 PM

I see there are inexpensive barcode scanners that can be purchased and plugged into the computer to use with LibaryThing. There seems to be an android phone app also.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Apr 12 - 06:27 AM

Joe -

IMO nobody should ever have used Works for anything.

But although they changed the language used, it hasn't really been discontinued. It's just called "Home Basic" now, which is so worthless (IMO) that nobody who wants to do anything useful should use it.

In response to the honest critics, they've most recently been trying to make real Office as useless as Home Basic so that everyone will have to use the kiddy stuff.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Apr 12 - 02:31 AM

Well, I had been using Microsoft Works for databases, but it has been discontinued. My Works database exceeded its limits, so I exported it to Excel. That worked for a time, but now I get this error message: Compile error in hidden module: This Workbook

It still works, but now I have to clear the error messages each time I make an entry.

Grrrr.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Apr 12 - 01:19 AM

Records sufficient for our "library" of >2000 books was maintained in Word, and was sufficient for our needs.

More complex stuff, I'd just put in Excel.

When a local book dealer came to inventory our collections he arrived with a hand scanner and scanned titles and ISBN numbers, and indicated that when he plugged the scanner into his compute it did an automatic search for anyone who'd requested the book from "any of several large dealers," and gave him a price/value estimate for anything else that might be of interest. He came back a couple of days later and "picked" about 10 percent of "her valuable books" but wasn't interested in any of mine. (She had already segregated the ones she "couldn't part with" and I didn't expect any interest in mine.)

I have no idea what program(s) he was using, but he seemed to be quite efficient - and gave us what we considered fair prices for what he took.

The program most suitable probably depends on the kind of material in the collection, with gun books not of particular interest to general collectors or dealers. Because of the narrow subject category, I'd suggest that before going too deep he needs to correspond with some like the NRA, Guns & Ammo, and others with a "dense population" (not a pun) of persons likely to be interested in what he wants to market, to identify established dealers in material of the "right kind." Once major dealers in the "correct trade" are known, they probably can provide a lot of help regarding what information needs to be recorded - which of course will affect what program is going to work best.

(The gun interests I suggested are US based. Elsewhere there are others, I'm sure.)

He might even be able to find someone like the fellow who culled our junkpile, willing to scan the pertinent information from all of it into a ready-made data base. Efficient large dealers very much prefer that smaller dealers have their stuff in a format the same as - or very similar to - what they use. Even if you're not dealing with other dealers, they'll find it on the web, and will be much more likely to bid if they see the forms of information they're accustomed to.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: Bert
Date: 17 Apr 12 - 07:29 PM

OI! Bill, are you implying that MY database was NOT written by an expert ;-)

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: Bert
Date: 17 Apr 12 - 07:24 PM

Whoops! I didn't give you quite enough info.

You need to save the code

Copy and paste from the line
#!c:\perl\bin\perl.exe
to the end

save it into a file (I use notepad) and save the file as a plain text file with a .pl file extension. For example you might want to use books.pl.

Download and install perl.

Create your database file, again I use notepad, and call it what you like. Say books.txt.

Now you must change the line in the code (the second line of code)
from

$Infile="phone.txt";

to

$Infile="books.txt";

or whatever you chose as a file name.

Now add data to books.txt

The record separator is a line with only one character in it that is a right brace as the first character in the line, way over to the left hand side with no spaces in front of it and no characters behind it.

Example

}
Title: The Commedians
Author: Graham Greene
Type: Paperback
Publisher: Bantam
shelf number: wherever you store it
}

That is just an example, you can format your records however you like (or not)


Click on the .pl file and it will bring up a console window.

You will see the prompt
Enter search word(s):

You can enter one or more words, (there is an implicit AND between words) order doesn't matter so you can enter greene graham

and it will find the record

It will find any instance of what you type

So if you type bantam green

It will find all records with the words bantam and green in them. It will also find records with Bantam and Greene.

It is not case sensitive.

If you want save the results of your search you can key in an s and it will save the results in a file called lastsearch.txt

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Apr 12 - 07:09 PM

http://www.arachnoid.com/DataProspector/index.html Freeware... uses Java. Written by an expert.

Or... Pricelessware scroll down to 1.10..Organize..books. (Most links are good)

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: Bert
Date: 17 Apr 12 - 06:06 PM

If you want a simple database here is one that I use.

It is a simple text file database that uses a single file.

The record separator is a single right brace in the first column like this

}
your first record goes here
}
the next one here
}

The file is free format so you can choose to format your records however you choose. You will need to download and install perl which is free.

Here is the code

#!c:\perl\bin\perl.exe



$Infile="phone.txt";


print "Enter search word(s): ";

chop($pats = );

$pats =~ s/^\s*(.*)$/$1/;

@pats = split(/\s+/, $pats);



while (@pats)
{
print "searching for: ", join(" & ", @pats), "\n";
$/ = "}";


if ($pats eq "s")
{
    print STDERR "\n Wait while saving result to file named lastsearch\n";

    @pats=@oldsearch;
   
open(TEXTFILE,">lastsearch.txt") ||
      die "Can't open lastsearch: $!\n";

   open(I, $Infile) ||
       die "Can't open $Infile: $!\n";

   while($line = )
    {
      $| = 1;

    $num = grep($line =~/$_/i, @pats);

    print TEXTFILE $line if ($num == @pats);
    }
    close I;

   close(TEXTFILE);
    print STDERR " Done saving result\n";

}

else

{
    @oldsearch=@pats;

    open(I, $Infile) ||
      die "Can't open $Infile: $!\n";

   $Dummy = "a";

   while(($line = ) && ($Dummy ne "q"))
    {
      $| = 1;

      $num = grep($line =~/$_/i, @pats);


    if ($num == @pats)
      {   
       print $line ;
       $/ = "\n";
       chop($Dummy=);

       $/ = "}";

      }
    }
}
   close(I);

$/ = "\n";

print "\nEnter search words or \ns to save previous result: ";

chop($pats = );

$pats =~ s/^\s*(.*)$/$1/;

@pats = split(/\s+/, $pats);

}

open(I, "intro");

while($line = )
{
print $line;
}
close(I);

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 17 Apr 12 - 03:41 PM

www.librarything.com/

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Apr 12 - 02:36 PM

If you've got Microsoft Office you could use Excel (or Access).

I use Filemaker Pro for all my database needs.

Endnote - unless you're a bona fide student - can be expensive.

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: open mike
Date: 17 Apr 12 - 02:33 PM

My ex is a book dealer...and he had a program called Book Mate..
the program was connected to a system that became Alibris...and
was designed to upload lists of books for sale on their site www.alibris com.

http://www.trussel.com/books/booksoft.htm#BookMaster

ther eis some info about it on the page above.

and a list of programs here..http://www.trussel.com/books/booksoft.htm

and on their site here;;;http://www.alibris.com/sellers

What site is this person planning on selling through>?

ABE and ALIBRIS   are very good sites...also Amazon now sells books.

and E-bay...i wish them luck!

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Apr 12 - 12:25 PM

There is a commercial program called Endnote, used in scholarly writing that I used years ago when I was writing papers with citations. If you can show academic credentials (enrolled in a class, work at a school, etc.) you can get it for a reduced cost. It is an excellent way to index books, but that is only one part of the program and might be overkill. I think with this program that you could enter the identifying ISBN codes (if the books are recent enough to have them) and download the metadata from the Library Of Congress. Otherwise, it would still retrieve information for author and title information.

For one online there is LibraryThing that has an inexpensive commercial component - for the number of books you're talking about, it would be a reasonable purchase.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: GUEST,bigJ
Date: 17 Apr 12 - 04:44 AM

Have a look at this:-
http://www.abebooks.com/homebase/software-inventory-management-system-catalogue/

Subject: RE: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Apr 12 - 01:08 AM

Not knowing the parameters he would need to set, I'd suggest he go to a fairly large book wholesaler, public library or university and ask about the programs they use.

Subject: Tech: Book Inventory Software
From: SeaCanary
Date: 16 Apr 12 - 09:44 PM

A friend wants to sell his collection of literally thousands of books on antique arms and weapons on the web. Can anyone please suggest software for creating and maintaining an inventory of his stock?